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TUMBLEWEEDS 


JBe Ibal <5. JEvarts 

The Cross Pull 

The Yellow Horde 

The Passing of the Old West 

The Bald Face : and Other 
Animal Stories 

The Settling of the Sage 

Fur Sign 

Tumbleweeds 






It was quite evident that all her thoughts 
centered round the younger brother. 

. See page 54. 



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FRONTISPIECE 









TUMBLEWEEDS 


BY 

HAL G. EVARTS 


WITH FRONTISPIECE BY 

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BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 

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Copyright, 1923, 

By Hay G. Eyarts. 

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All rights reserved 
Published January, 1923 


Printed in the United States op America 


JAN 10 ’23' / 


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TUMBLEWEEDS 






TUMBLEWEEDS 


i 

In all that vast expanse of country west of Fort 
Riley clear to the Sierras of California there are 
not over four hundred thousand acres of arable 
land. 

This extract from McClelland’s report, later 
appearing as preface to some fourteen volumes of 
Pacific Railroad explorations, evidently acted as 
a direct challenge to the pioneering spirit of a 
country that was young. Following immediately 
upon its publication, as if in a concerted effort of 
refutation, the great westward trek across a con¬ 
tinent set in, the determined advance of a land- 
hungry horde intent upon seeking out and set¬ 
tling that four hundred thousand acres of arable 
land; and in the brief space of thirty years there 
were thirty million acres under fence while the 
swarming multitude of hopeful settlers continued 
to surge westward across the face of the earth. 

Thus do even wise men frequently fail to vision 
the immensity of the future which stretches forth 


2 Tumbleweeds 

ahead within the puny span of their own remain¬ 
ing years. 

Another few decades and old Joe Hinman, 
himself accounted a wise man among his fellows, 
sat his horse on a little rise of ground and la¬ 
mented his own lack of foresight. Donald Car¬ 
ver, his younger companion, gazed off across the 
flat where several riders held some two thousand 
head of steers. Hinman had come with the van- 
miard of the invaders and had watched succeed- 
ing waves of home seekers swarm past on all the 
ancient trails, the bull trains stretching almost 
without a break from the Missouri to the Colo¬ 
rado hills, when Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche 
contested the advance at every crossing of the 
Bepublican and the Smoky Hill, at the Great 
Bend of the Arkansas, and historic Pawnee 
Bock; had watched the bull teams and the prairie 
schooner giving way to freight cars that rattled 
past on steel rails which spanned a continent. 
He had seen the rolling plains of Kansas, once 
constituting the first reaches of the Great Ameri¬ 
can Desert, lifted bodily into statehood and won¬ 
drous fertility, so long since that younger men 
had almost forgotten that their native State had 
ever been other than a prosperous agricultural 

community. While the main tides of settlement 
had swept on to the west and north, Hinman 


Tumbleweeds 


3 

had turned aside and traveled south on the Chis¬ 
holm Trail till he reached a point where the floods 
of home seekers were halted by some invisible bar¬ 
rier. There he had settled and prospered, but 
even now, thirty years after driving his first claim 
stakes through the prairie sod, that same barrier 
resisted all advance. Just outside his dooryard 
a vast tract, sixty miles by two hundred in extent, 
remained undeveloped and untouched. The land 
was rich and beckoned temptingly to those who 
sought a scrap of ground which might con¬ 
stitute a home, yet beyond Hinman’s holdings the 
virgin sod extended to the far horizon with never 
a ribbon of smoke by day or a twinkling window 
by night to indicate the friendly presence of a 
settler’s cabin, — the Cherokee Strip, upon which 
the white man was forbidden to settle by the 
terms of an ancient treaty. This great tract had 
been set aside to serve as insulation between war¬ 
ring whites and reds, its status still the same even 
though the necessity for such insulation had been 
long since removed, — an empire lying dormant 
and awaiting only the magic word which should 
strike off the shackles and permit its broad miles 
to blossom into productiveness. 

“ There she lays, son,” Hinman said, waving 
an arm in a comprehensive sweep toward the 
unowned lands. “ Some day right soon they’ll 


Tumbleweeds 


4 

open her. Every land-hungry party in four 
States has his eye on the last frontier and when¬ 
ever she’s throwed open to settlement you’ll see 
one hair-raising mad stampede. So if you’re 
going off somewheres, like I heard it rumored, 
why I’d cancel the arrangements and sit tight.” 

The younger man nodded without comment. 

“ Fortune always beckons from some place a 
long ways remote,” Hinman rambled on. 
“ When likely she’s roosting right at home, if 
only we’d have a look. Now I quit Ohio as a 
youngster because there wasn’t any land left 
open but hardwood swamp lands, which could be 
had for about a dollar an acre, but I couldn’t see 
its value at a dollar a mile. To-day that Ohio 
swamp land is selling round two hundred an acre 
while what ground I’ve got under crop out here 
would average right at thirty and raw grassland 
not over three or four.” 

“ But owning the most part of two countries,” 
Carver commented, “ you can maybe worry 
along.” 

“ Likely,” Hinman confessed. “ But that’s 
not the point. I could have stayed right at home 
with those swamp lands and without ever exert¬ 
ing myself, except maybe to keep entertained 
with a brace of coon hounds, I could have 
growed into more wealth by considerable than 


Tumbleweeds 


5 

what I’ve accumulated out here by steady work. 
That’s the real point; so it appears that my leav¬ 
ing there was sheer lack of foresight. So it’s 
likely that your best chance to get ahead and lay 
up an honest dollar is by staying right here in¬ 
stead of stampeding off somewheres. That’s the 
real reason I sent for you.” 

“ Since I’ve never even considered leaving, and 
you well aware of it,” said Carver, grinning, 
“ then the real reason you sent for me was to 
engage me to perform something you didn’t want 
to do yourself — which in turn is related to the 
possibility of my accumulating an honest dollar. 
We’ve rambled all the way from timbered swamp 
land on down to the surrounding short grass. 
What sort of country lays beyond ? My curiosity 
is fairly foaming over.” 

Hinman regarded him quizzically and Carver 
bore the scrunity undisturbed. The older man 
knew that Carver was dependable; that once 
committed he would follow any mission to its ter¬ 
mination and defend the financial interests of his 
employer with every resource at his command. 
It was only in his own affairs that he evidenced 
supreme carelessness. Older men forgave his 
irresponsibility in that quarter and accorded him 
a certain measure of respect for the reason that 
even in the midst of some bit of recklessness he 


6 


Tumbleweeds 


retained an underlying sense of balance and 
proportion. And he had worked intermittently 
for old Joe Hinman for the past twelve years. 

“ It’s not that I don’t want to do it myself,” 
Hinman denied, reverting to Carver’s mild ac¬ 
cusation. “ It’s only that it wouldn’t look right 
on the surface. Now whatever property is down 
in the Strip is legally non-existent, you might 
say, and consequently untaxable,” thereby dis¬ 
proving his oft-lamented lack of foresight. 
“ And it’s drawing right close to the first of 
March.” 

“ So you want me to move a thousand head of 
steers across the line and hold ’em till after 
you’ve been assessed.” Carver hazarded. 

“ Two thousand, son,” Hinman corrected. 
“ Two thousand head. You couldn’t hold ’em 
in the quarantine belt for long without getting 
jumped, but you know the boss of every outfit 
off to the south and you could maybe trade deals 
with one of them. You’ll know how. It’ll save 
me taxes on two thousand head and give me a few 
weeks’ free grass. That much for me and a 
thousand nice dollars for you if you put it 
across.” 

“ An hour after dark I’ll be shoving those cows 
across the line,” Carver promised. “ Meantime 


Tumbleweeds 


7 

you might advance a hundred. Unfortunately 
I’m just out of funds.” 

“ Unfortunately,” said Hinman, “ you’re just 
always out.” He counted off the money. 
“ You’ve worked for me on and off ever since you 
was big enough to claw your way up onto a horse 
and on some occasions you’ve exercised such fair 
average judgment in looking after my affairs 
that I’ve wondered why on all occasions you was 
such a poor hand to look after your own.” 

“ I’ve been so taken up with your business that 
I’ve sort of let my own interests drift along,” 
Carver explained. 

“ You’re right handy at doing things for me,” 
Hinman resumed. “ But when it comes to doing 
anything for yourself you’re somewhat the most 
tinkering, trifling specimen I’ve come acrost. 
You really ought to settle on some one job and 
stick at it.” 

“ That’s my one favorite motto,” Carver con¬ 
fessed. “ Stick to your bush — and be exhibited 
among the vegetables.” 

He turned his eye upon a tumbleweed that 
raced madly past before the wind. The dried 
skeleton was of the general size and shape of a 
pumpkin. Two more of these discontented 
wraiths of the prairies hurtled past. 


8 Tumbleweeds 

“ Now there goes a vegetable with ambitions,” 
said Carver. “ Every winter the tumbleweed 
tribe stages a protest against being mere plants 
rooted forever to one spot.” He chanted a few 
of the numberless verses of a prairie song: 

“ Our size and shape is similar,” 

Said the tumbleweed to the pumpkin. 

“ I’ll run you a race from here to there 
And all the way back again. 

“ I’m a wild free blade of the open. 

The spirit of all unrest. 

I may end up in some worse place 
But I’m going to make the test.” 

“And I’m the soul of solid content,” 

Said the pumpkin to the weed. 

“ Rather than take any chance at all 
I’ll stay here and go to seed.” 

But I’d rather be a traveling weed 
Than a stationary squash. 

“ I know,” Hinman said. “ You’re a pure¬ 
bred tumbleweed and no mistake. But most folks 
follow one business, and let the r^st alone.” 

“ And it’s my observation that most folks are 
dissatisfied with what they’re working at but keep 
on doing it the rest of their natural lives just 
to try and vindicate their judgment,” Carver 
said. “ Now if I don’t settle on one pursuit 
there’ll never be any reason for me to be discon¬ 
tented with my choice.” 


Tumbleweeds 


9 

The old man considered this bit of philosophy. 

“ If you ever decide to risk a mistake I’ll may¬ 
be help you out to a mild extent,” he said, “ pro¬ 
vided you come through with this present little 
errand I’m sending you on.” 

Carver thanked him, pocketed the bills which 
constituted the advance upon his venture, and 
headed his horse off to the east. As he rode he 
reviewed all possible motives underlying Hin- 
man’s proposal. Tax dodging on a smaller scale 
was no unusual thing along the line, but he was 
morally certain that this motive, though the pur¬ 
ported object of the trip, was entirely secondary 
in Hinman’s considerations. 

“ The taxes won’t amount to half the expenses 
of the trip,” Carver reflected. “ Now just what 
is he aiming at? ” 

He had reached no satisfactory solution when, 
an hour later, the squat buildings of Caldwell 
loomed before him. He dismissed the problem 
temporarily. As he rode down the wide main 
thoroughfare it seemed that the hand of time had 
been turned back two decades to the days of 
Abilene, Hayes and Dodge, when each of those 
spots in turn had come into its brief day of glory 
as the railroad’s end and the enviable reputation 
of being the toughest camp on earth. In their 
day all those towns had eclipsed the wildest 


io Tumbleweeds 

heights of wickedness attained by mushroom min¬ 
ing camps of lurid fame, then had passed on into 
the quiet routine of permanent respectability as 
the trading centers of prosperous agricultural 
communities. But little Caldwell stood unique, 
as if she were a throwback to an earlier day, nest¬ 
ling in the edge of a state where prohibition and 
anti-gambling regulations had long prevailed, 
yet her saloons stood invitingly open by day and 
night and the clatter of chips and the smooth 
purr of the ivory ball were never silent in the 
halls of chance; for just beyond lay No Man’s 
Land, the stamping ground of all those restless 
spirits who chafed against restrictive laws that 
were not of their own making, and wide-open 
Caldwell reaped the harvest of their free-flung 
dollars. 

Groups of tall-hatted, chap-clad men hailed 
Carver from the sidewalk as he rode down the 
wide main street. Scores of saddled horses 
drowsed at the hitch rails and ranchers’ families 
rattled past in buckboards drawn by half-wild 
ponies. The street was thronged with blanketed 
Indians, for the Government beef issue was par¬ 
celled out semi-monthly on the little hill south of 
Caldwell and every two weeks the whole Chero¬ 
kee nation made the pilgrimage to receive the 
largess of the Great White Father. As if to 


Tumbleweeds II 

complete the illusion that he had been trans¬ 
ported back to the days of Dodge and Abilene, 
Carver could make out the low-hanging pall of 
dust which marked the slow progress of a trail- 
herd moving up from the south along the old 
Chisholm Trail, a thoroughfare now paralleled 
by the railroad that pierced the Cherokee Strip, 
but which was still available to those who would 
save freight charges and elected instead to follow 
the old-time method of pastoral transportation 
in marketing their droves. 

Carver left his horse in a lean-to shed in rear 
of a two-room frame house in the outskirts of 
town. The plot of ground on which it stood, 
consisting of three corner lots, had come into his 
possession the preceding winter through the me¬ 
dium of a poker hand. Instead of disposing of 
the tract for ten dollars — the amount of chips 
which he had risked against it — it had pleased 
him to retain it and construct thereon the little 
board house, performing the work himself dur¬ 
ing leisure hours. 

He headed for the swinging doors of the Silver 
Dollar, hopeful of finding congenial companion¬ 
ship even though this was the wrong time of day 
for any considerable activity within doors. A 
group of men sat along the rear wall and con¬ 
versed in listless tones. Here were those upon 



12 Tumbleweeds 

whom fortune had failed to smile the preceding 
night, waiting for some kindred spirit who, more 
favored than themselves, might express a willing¬ 
ness to relieve their temporary distress. 

“ It’s high noon and I’ll wager not a man 
present has even had his breakfast,” Carver 
greeted. “ But the rescue squad is here to pro¬ 
vide nourishment for the losers.” 

He tendered a crisp bill to Alf Wellman. 

“ Fill the boys with food,” he invited. “ And 
in the meantime, while they’re deciding what to 
order— ” and he motioned toward the polished 
bar. 

Wellman jerked a casual thumb in the direc¬ 
tion of the three men in the group who were 
unknown to Carver. 

“ These are the Lassiter boys,” he announced 
by way of introduction. “Not bad after you 
get to knowing ’em.” 

The three Lassiters were an oddly assorted 
crew; Milt, the eldest, a gaunt, dark man who 
spoke but seldom; Noll, a sandy, self-assertive 
and unprepossessing individual; while Bart, by 
several years their junior, was a big blond young¬ 
ster whose genial grin cemented Carver’s instant 
friendship. 

Noll Lassiter hitched from his chair, his eyes 
resting on the bank note in Wellman’s hand, and 


Tumbleweeds 


13 

as he attained his feet a slight lurch testified to 
the fact that even if he had not found food during 
the morning hours he had at least found drink. 
Being thus fortified his desire for food was now 
uppermost. 

“ Let’s eat,” he said. 

“ Restrain yourself,” the younger brother ad¬ 
monished. “ The gentleman’s giving a party. 
Besides it’s downright harmful to eat breakfast 
on an empty stomach — and mine is absolutely 
vacant.” 

“ Worst thing you could do’” Wellman sec¬ 
onded. “ It will show up on a man if he keeps 
at it.” 

“ I expect there have been folks tried it and 
went right on living till they got kicked by a 
horse or died some other sort of a natural death,” 
said Carver. “ But what’s the use of taking 
chances? ” 

Noll restrained his urge for food while the host 
paid for two rounds, then reverted to his original 
contention. 

“ And now,” said he, “ let’s eat.” 

“ Not until I’ve purchased a return round for 
our old friend Carver,” Bart dissented. 

“ How’re you going to manage it without a 
dime in your pockets? ” Noll demanded. 

“ You ought to be familiar with the state of 


Tumbleweeds 


14 

my pockets,” the blond youth returned, “ having 
conducted a thorough search of them and pur¬ 
loined therefrom my last ten spot before I was 
awake. Why didn't you reserve two bits for 
breakfast before you tossed it off on the wheel if 
you’re so damn near starved? ” 

He remained with Carver while the others 
followed Wellman through the swinging side 
door that led into the adjoining restaurant. 

“ And now, since Pete here,” said Bart, indi¬ 
cating the barkeeper, “ steadfastly refuses to 
open a charge account, I ll have to do some finan¬ 
cing. Lend me a couple of quarts of your very 
worst,” he wheedled. ‘‘Not charge, you under¬ 
stand, but just lend ’em to me for a period of three 
minutes. Something round a dollar a quart.” 

The bartender selected a brace of black bottles 
and shoved them across to Lassiter who moved 
with them to a rear door that opened on an alley. 
Several blanketed figures prowled this rear 
thoroughfare and the copper-hued wards of the 
Government converged upon the man in the door¬ 
way. He exchanged the two quarts for two five- 
dollar bills, thereby becoming eligible for a pro¬ 
tracted stay within the walls of the penitentiary. 

“ Now we can start even,” he announced, pay¬ 
ing Pete for the initial stock and retaining the 


Tumbleweeds 


15 

surplus. “ Quick turns and small profits is mr 
rule of life.” 

“ One day you’ll acquire a new rule — long 
years and no profits,” predicted the white- 
aproned philosopher behind the bar. “ Unless 
you learn to transact that sort of business by the 
dark of the moon.” 

“ Necessity,” Lassiter advanced in extenuation 
of his lack of caution. “ Suppose you set us out 
a sample of something a few shades more palat¬ 
able than what we just peddled to the old chief.” 

The two pooled their resources and pursued 
their casual carefree way, all sense of responsi¬ 
bility discarded for the moment, as one might 
shed an uncomfortable garment with the idea of 
donning it again at some future time. The 
youthful Lassiter, who deplored all things serious 
while at play, found in Carver a delightful com¬ 
panion who seemed sufficiently light-minded and 
irresponsible to satisfy the most exacting. The 
wheel in the Silver Dollar, the faro bank in the 
Senate and the crap layout in the Gilded Eagle, 
each contributed modestly to their swelling bank 
roll in response to a few casual bets. As they left 
this last named resort Bart halted suddenly. 
Carver glanced up to determine the cause of this 
abrupt halt. Freel, a deputy United States mar¬ 
shal, had just passed, and Carver, recalling the 


i6 


Tumbleweeds 


incident of the two black bottles, concluded that 
Lassiter had decided against meeting the Federal 
officer at just that moment lest the news of the 
transaction had reached him. Freel walked with 
a girl, his hand clasping her arm familiarly as he 
piloted her through the crowd. Bart frowned 
after the couple. 

“ I wouldn’t let the valiant marshal fret you,” 
Carver counselled. “ I don’t know much about 
him except that he strikes a flat note in me, but I 
suspect he’s a pussy-footer and real harmless. 
I’ve heard things about Freel.” 

“ That’s what I know,” said Lassiter. “ So’ve 
I; and it’s the things I’ve heard which keeps him 
on my mind. One day I’ll have to slip my twine 
on him and canter off across a few thousand acres 
of country with him dangling along behind.” 

“ Tell me when,” said Carver. “ I’ll dab my 
noose on his off leg and bounce my horse off the 
opposite direction like w T e was contending for the 
biggest piece of a turkey’s wishbone. If half I 
hear is true he’s got it coming and folks will hail 
us as public benefactors.” 

Twice within the next hour Carver noticed Noll 
Lassiter conversing with Freel. It was evident, 
that, whatever Bart’s grievance against the mar¬ 
shal, the feeling was not shared by the elder 
brother. The mid-afternoon crowd had gathered 


Tumbleweeds 


17 

in the Silver Dollar by the time Carver returned 
to the starting place. Men banked deep round 
the roulette layout as it was whispered about that 
Carver and Bart Lassiter were winning heavily 
from the bank. The professional chant of look¬ 
out and croupier rose above the hum of conversa¬ 
tion as the ivory ball purred smoothly round the 
wheel of chance. Noll Lassiter shouldered his 
way through the crowd and stationed himself 
between the two favorites of fortune. 

“ Luck’s with us,” he genially proclaimed 
thereby identifying himself with the winnings. 
“ We’ll break this wheel between the three of us. 
She’s running our way strong.” 

Carver suddenly realized that the pair had be¬ 
come a trio as Noll supplied himself with chips 
from the accumulation before the other two. 
When these had joined their fellows in the check 
rack he appropriated a fresh supply. Carver 
was conscious of a growing dislike for this un¬ 
invited partner. He tapped Noll’s hand with a 
fore finger as the man reached for a third stack 
of chips. 

“ Try keeping it in your pocket,” he mildly ad¬ 
vised. “ It’s as active after chips as a sand rat 
after a beetle; and it makes me restless.” 

“ Half of these chips belong to Bart,” Noll 
insisted. But this sudden assumption of the 


i8 


Tumbleweeds 


close-knit bond of brotherhood failed to rouse 
any corresponding enthusiasm in the younger 
Lassiter. 

“ You’re blasting our luck,” he asserted. “ Not 
to say annoying us. Take yourself off some- 
wheres.” 

Noil, however, declined to heed this bit of coun¬ 
sel. Bart and Carver pushed their chips across 
the hoard and cashed in. 

“ Cheerful companion, Noll is, when he’s pack¬ 
ing a skinful,” Bart commented as the doors of 
the Silver Dollar closed behind them. “ And 
he’s equally genial when he’s sober.” 

“ Offhand I’d pass unfavorable judgment on 
your relative,” Carver confessed. “ I don’t see 
much family resemblance. How come you’re 
brothers? ” 

“ Half-brothers,” Bart amended. “ We had 
the same father. I came along a dozen years 
late. Spoiled younger son, you know. Least- 
ways I was always spoiled in spots where Noll 
had been working on me. When I turned sixteen 
I set out to spoil Noll. Since his convalesence 
he’s had a notion I might declare another open 
season on the dove of peace so we get along 
nowadays in regular family style. Say; now 
since we’re rolling in wealth you wouldn’t mind 


Tumbleweeds 19 

if I held out twenty in case fortune failed us? 
It’s not quite the thing to do but-” 

“ Bury it,” Carver agreed, waving his hesi¬ 
tancy aside. “ Tuck it away somewhere.” He 
knew his man and was certain that the twenty was 
destined to fill some urgent necessity. “ We’ll 
never even miss a little piece like that.” 

Lassiter led the way to a rooming house above 
a store and turned into a dimly lighted room on 
one side of the narrow hall. Articles of man’s 
attire lay scattered about the place. 

“ The three of us headquarter here when we’re 
in town,” Bart explained. “ I’ll plant these two 
tens in a dresser drawer.” 

He opened the drawer in question and Carver, 
standing just to his right, found himself gazing 
down upon a scrap of black cloth from which two 
eyeholes stared blankly back at him. Lassiter 
placed the two gold pieces beneath the old news¬ 
paper with which the drawer was carpeted, clos¬ 
ing it without comment, and they returned to the 
street and sought the wheel in the Gilded Eagle. 
For a time fortune smiled on them. Then a 
reverse tide set in. At the end of an hour each 
one shoved a stiff 'bet upon the board. There was 
the usual brief hush as the ball neared the end 
of its spin. 

“ The even losses to the odd and the red defeats 



20 


Tumbleweeds 


the black,” the croupier chanted. “ The middle 
column pays the gambler and the others pay the 
house. Place your bets for another turn.” He 
twisted the wheel and snapped the ivory marble 
in the reverse direction. “ The little ivory ball — 
she spins! the flitting pill of fortune. Off again 
on the giddy whirl.” 

He glanced expectantly at the two chief play¬ 
ers but they had explored their pockets and failed 
to invoice sufficient resources with which to pur¬ 
chase a white chip between the two of them. 

“Odd how rapid a man can shed it if he sets 
out to exert himself,” Carver commented. 

Lassiter grinned and turned suddenly toward 
the door. It occurred to Carver that the youth 
was starting forth to retrieve that twenty-dollar 
reserve which was cached in the dresser drawer. 

“ Don’t you,” he admonished; but Lassiter had 
passed out the door. 

Carver made a move to follow but met Carl 
Mattison, town marshal, coming in. 

“ You recollect that extra saddle,” Carver 
greeted without parley. “ The one you was ad¬ 
miring, with all those silver trappings. If you 
still admire it fifty dollars’ worth-” 

“ Sold,” said the marshal and counted out the 
money. “ Send it round to my room above the 
Boston Store.” 



Tumbleweeds 21 

“ I would,” said Carver, “ only my delivery 
boy, the shiftless little wart, is out somewhere 
spinning his top. Here’s the key to my shack. 
You saunter past and collect it.” 

Carver headed for Lassiter’s room. The door 
stoor ajar and as he entered he observed a stoop¬ 
ing figure whose hand was busily exploring the 
drawer of the dresser. 

“ We won’t need that twenty,” Carver said. 
“ Let her ride where she is.” 

The figure straightened and whirled to face 
him in the dim light. It was Noll Lassiter, not 
Bart. 

“ Where’s Bart?” Carver asked. 

“ Haven’t seen him,” Noll returned. 

“ Then where’s Bart’s twenty dollars? ” Car¬ 
ver inquired. “ I mistrust that you’ve got it — 
and I want it. S’pose you hand it over.” 

“ Make it out of here! ” Noll ordered. “ This 
is my room and I don’t want you in it.” 

“ Someway you haven’t inspired me with any 
ardent fancy,” Carver stated. “ Bight at present 
the feeling is mild, but it will grow acute if you 
keep exploring in that drawer for Bart’s last 
twenty.” 

Lassiter made a swift move 'behind him but his 
arms fell back at his sides as Carver’s gun was 
jammed suddenly against his floating ribs. 


22 Tumbleweeds 

“ Tut, tut,” Carver admonished. “ You’re 
way too awkward for that sort of thing. Some¬ 
time you’ll do that and some excitable soul will 
shoot you three or four times while you’re start¬ 
ing your wind-up.” 

He removed Noll’s weapon and tossed both it 
and his own upon the bed. 

“ Now we can converse at our ease until Bart 
comes,” he said. 

But Lassiter, angered beyond precaution, 
jumped for him the instant he relinquished the 
weapons, and being heavier than Carver he 
sought to bear him down by sheer weight. Car¬ 
ver rocked his head with two solid smashes but 
Noll sought only to come to grips where he could 
exert his strength, clutching at his opponent in¬ 
stead of returning his blows. They fought in 
cramped quarters and Carver could not step to 
either side lest he should give Lassiter access to 
the two guns reposing on the bed. The huge 
paws clamped on his shoulders and Lassiter 
crushed him back against the dresser. Carver 
elevated one knee between them, planted his boot 
against the other’s paunch and propelled him 
violently doorward. With a single step he re¬ 
trieved his gun with intent to discourage Lassi¬ 
ter’s return, but he had no need of it. The big 
man’s head collided forcibly with the door jamb 


Tumbleweeds 


23 

and he sprawled in a limp heap just outside the 
narrow corridor. 

Bart Lassiter, just mounting the stairway, wit¬ 
nessed this strange exit of his relative. He 
peered inside and discovered Carver, so he entered 
and seated himself on the edge of the bed, twist¬ 
ing a cigarette while he sought to reconcile the 
evidence before his eyes with the mental picture 
of the empty room as he had left it not five 
minutes past. 

“ Incidentally, there seems to be a corpse on the 
threshold,” he presently observed. “ What did it 
die of?” 

“ General malignancy that set in right after 
birth and just now came to a head,” Carver 
diagnosed. “ He was prospecting for your cache 
when I arrived.” 

“ He’d already located it,” Bart stated. “ It 
was gone when I came up. Likely he came back 
to hunt for more as I went down, and your trails 
converged, sort of. Wellman said you’d just 
turned up the stairs, so I came on back.” 

He crossed over to inspect the sprawled figure 
in the hallway. 

“ I’d say he was totally defunct,” he reported; 
but as if to refute this assertion Noll stirred an 
arm and grunted. “ Unfortunately rescuscita- 
tion is already setting in,” Bart revised his state- 


24 Tumbleweeds 

merit. “ Let’s be off before he opens one eye and 
tries to borrow ten.” 

An hour later the proceeds derived from the 
sale of the saddle had faded in the face of the 
bank’s per cent and their finances were totally 
exhausted except for a few small coins in Car¬ 
ver’s pocket. Lassiter leaned rather heavily 
against the bar in the Silver Dollar and straight¬ 
ened himself with an effort. 

“ It’s time for me to dangle,” he announced. 
“ Hate to break up the party and all that sort 
of thing, hut I’m overdue right now. Meet you 
here in an hour.” 

He proceeded toward the door which opened 
into the adjoining restaurant but Carver over¬ 
hauled him while he was yet some ten feet from 
his goal. 

“ Now don’t you go trickling out on me,” he 
reproved. “I’ll be gone in an hour — riding off 
for three weeks. Stay with me till then and we’ll 
both move out together.” 

Lassiter turned uncertainly and Carver, look¬ 
ing past him, discovered that the swinging door 
into the restaurant stood half-open. The young 
girl framed in the doorway was gazing straight 
into his eyes. Oddly enough his first thought 
took the form of an intense desire to expend 
large sums of money in buying things for her, 


Tumbleweeds 


25 

this impulse coupled with a swift regret that 
such amounts as he wished to squander were not 
for the moment available. The eyes that looked 
back into his were gray eyes, bordering on blue; 
and he gathered that they regarded him with a 
mixture of doubt and pity. He straightened re¬ 
sentfully, never having been doubted and refus¬ 
ing to be pitied, flooded with a sense of having 
been detected in some bit of wickedness. For 
the first time in his life his own eyes dropped 
before the direct gaze of another’s yet in his whole 
past career there was not one deed for which he 
felt any particular regret or shame. He lifted 
his eyes again with a hint of defiance, but found 
himself staring at the 'blank swinging door; in 
that split-second of averted glance the vision had 
disappeared, leaving him with a vague impression 
of its unreality, — and with a pronounced dis¬ 
inclination for continuing the party. Lassiter 
had not seen, and Carver dispelled the blond 
youth’s hesitation. 

“ Maybe we’d better call it a day,” he said. 
“See you when I get back from the Strip.” 

Carver was conscious of a distaste for his sur¬ 
roundings, once the door had closed behind his 
companion. These carousals in town always 
palled on him in the end, giving way to the urge 
to straddle a horse and be off through the clean 



26 


Tumbleweeds 


outdoors while the wind fanned the fumes from 
his head, but heretofore this state of mind had 
come about through gradual transition instead 
of descending upon him in a single second as had 
been the case to-day. 

He gravitated to the roulette wheel through 
force of habit and risked his handful of small 
coins, playing absently and placing his bets with¬ 
out care or consideration. Now just why, he 
wondered, had he been struck with a wild wish to 
buy things for a girl he had never glimpsed be¬ 
fore in his life. He was not conscious that she 
had been shabbily clothed, for to save his immor¬ 
tal soul he could not have testified to the color, 
texture or state of preservation of one single item 
of her attire, but someway he felt that she was 
needing things and he wanted to see that these 
things were provided. He cashed in his few re¬ 
maining chips and the banker handed him a single 
silver dollar in return. 


II 


Carter repaired to the shack to retrieve his 
horse and as he rode back through town he ob¬ 
served a group round the town well in the center 
of the wide main street. Mattison had laid aside 
his personal pursuits and had donned his official 
role of town marshal, in which capacity he was 
instructing Bart Lassiter in no uncertain terms 
as to the impropriety of watering his horse from 
the oaken bucket attached to the well rope. 

“ Water him from the trough,” he ordered. 

“ After all those Cherokee ponies have been 
dipping their noses in it? ” Bart demanded. 
“Not this horse.” 

“ That bucket is for folks,” the marshal pa¬ 
tiently explained. 

“ An’ this horse is folks,” Lassiter insisted. 
He continued to extend the brimming bucket 
horseward with his left hand. The spectators 
shifted, recalling that Mattison’s predecessor 
had fallen in a street fight near this same well. 
There w r as no ill-feeling between the two men, 
but neither of them would back down publicly 
under pressure. Carver glanced aside as a voice 


28 Tumbleweeds 

called Bart’s name. The girl of the Silver Dol¬ 
lar was peering from a window above a store, her 
gaze riveted on the group at the well. 

“ Here’s two of my friends working up a griev¬ 
ance over well water,” Carver said, dropping 
from his horse. “ Wherever did the pair of you 
acquire this sudden interest in it? I’m surprised 
at you.” 

“ If this party’s a friend of yours, why you take 
him,” said Mattison. “ He won’t mind me. Let 
him water his horse till the well goes dry.” 

“ No such thing,” Lassiter gracefully declined. 
“ I wouldn’t think of letting the critter slosh his 
muzzle in the town bucket.” 

The marshal moved off and Carver reflected 
that the girl’s sudden appearance in the doorway 
of the Silver Dollar had been occasioned by Bart 
Lassiter’s failure to fulfill his appointment. It 
also accounted for Bart’s hesitation as they had 
stepped out of the Golden Eagle earlier in the 
day. He had halted to avoid meeting the girl, 
not to avoid Freel, as Carver had previously sup¬ 
posed; and Bart’s grievance against Freel rose 
from this same source, for undoubtedly the girl 
who was being piloted down the street by the 
marshal at the moment of their exit was the same 
who had later stirred Carver so strangely by her 
unexpected appearance in the doorway. 


Tumbleweeds 


29 

“ A lady was calling your name from a window 
a minute back,” he said. 

“ Likely it was Molly,” Bart returned. 
“ That’s who that ten spot was destined for — 
the one Noll lifted first. That twenty I planted 
later would also have found its way to her except 
for Noll. She’s a sweet kid, Molly, but she’s 
worried sick every minute I’m out of sight.” 

Carver was conscious of a sense of irritation 
toward his friend, a vague resentment at this 
implied familiarity between the boy and the lady 
of the doorway. 

“ Then I wouldn’t be letting her wait around,” 
he reproved. “Damned if I would.” 

“ But a man can’t tag his sister every living 
second,” Bart expostulated. “ I ask you now! ” 

“ No,”-said Carver. “ Maybe not.” His irri¬ 
tation had evaporated. “ But if she was my sister 
I’d put in considerable time with her.” 

The brother grinned unrepent ant ly. 

“ All right; you do that,” he urged. “ Maybe 
she’ll take to worrying about you instead of losing 
sleep over me. Appears to me like a nice ar¬ 
rangement for all hands concerned.” 

The girl appeared suddenly beside Lassiter 
and rested a hand on his arm. 

“Put up your horse and stay here with me,” 
she urged. 



30 Tumbleweeds 

“ Can’t, Molly,” Bart declined. “ I promised 
the boys I’d go and they’re waiting now. We’re 
due to help Crowfoot gather a little bunch of beef 
stuff to-morrow and we’ll have to ride all night if 
we make Turkey Creek by morning.” 

The girl turned to Carver. 

“ Thanks for interceding with your friend the 
marshal,” she said. “ But please go now. 
You’ve had Bart to yourself all day.” 

Carver nodded assent, mounted and rode off 
down the street. As he passed the Silver Dollar 
he felt the single coin in his pocket. 

“ That’s what I’m capitalized at,” he said. 
“ Just one little measly silver dollar. That’s my 
invoice. This morning I could have added a 
horse, a house and an extra saddle to the state¬ 
ment. Now I’m out the saddle and owe Hinman 
a sum sufficient to offset the value of both horse 
and house. I’d sell under the hammer for a single 
dollar bill. The lady read my face value at a 
glance and dismissed me offhand without another 
look.” 

He saw the two elder Lassiter brothers riding 
south at the next street intersection. It was 
quite dark when he cleared the town and as he 
rode on through the night he was conscious of a 
mild dissatisfaction. He drew forth his last coin 
and addressed it. 


Tumbleweeds 31 

“I’ve rode into town with a many a dollar on 
me,” he said. “ But this is about the first time I 
ever rode out and packed one away with me. 
That shows I’m growing more conservative right 
along. You must be a lucky little devil or else 
you wouldn’t have stayed with me till I got out 
of town.” He slipped the coin back into his 
pocket. “ Little lonely dollar, you must mount 
up to a million.” 

He heard the low rumble of animal voices and 
knew that Hinman’s cows were being held on the 
bed ground somewhere just ahead. The old man 
greeted him as he rode up. 

“I’m sending Bradshaw and four others with 
you,” he announced. “ One of the boys is hold¬ 
ing the pack outfit back behind. He’ll follow. 
I’ll help you get ’em on their feet and moving.” 

The men spread out at intervals to the north 
of the herd, riding along its edge and crowding 
the cows on the near fringe to their feet. They 
worked cautiously, for any slight commotion of 
an unusual nature, the weird flap of a garment 
or any cry too startling, might serve to throw a 
few cows into a panic which would be swiftly 
communicated to the rest and put the whole herd 
off the bed ground in a mad stampede. Their 
chief concern was to prevent a disastrous night 
run. The affair was skilfully handled and the 


32 Tumbleweeds 

near fringe of cows rose reluctantly, crowded 
back through the ranks of their reclining fellows 
and raising them in turn till eventually the whole 
herd was up and drifting south. 

The moon rose sharp and clear as they crossed 
into the Strip and for hours they forged slowly 
ahead, their course a‘trifle south of west. When 
they had covered ten miles the forward drift of 
the herd was arrested and the tired cows 'bedded 
down at once. 

“ From now on they’re in your hands, son,” 
Hinman said to Carver. “ I’ll back any deal you 
make with the outfits off to the south, so play her 
the best you know.” 

He turned his horse back toward the State line 
and left Carver to solve the problem as best he 
might. Their present stand was in the quaran¬ 
tine belt, a strip some miles wide which paralleled 
the State line; this to protect the stock of the 
Kansas cowmen from Texas fever and other con¬ 
tagious afflictions so prevalent among the trail 
herds brought up from the south. All southern 
cattle must be held in this quarantine area until 
declared free of all disease before proceeding on 
their northward course to market. This was the 
off-season for the pastoral transportation of trail 
herds from the Texas cow country, and the only 
official intervention against which Carver must 


Tumbleweeds 


33 

guard was the possible appearance of one of the 
infrequent cavalry patrols sent out from old Fort 
Darlington on the southern extremity of the 
Strip. 

The unowned lands were tenanted only by a 
few big cow outfits whose owners had made satis¬ 
factory arrangements with the Cherokees, paying 
their tribute in the shape of grazing fees, a custom 
so long established that it was recognized by Fed¬ 
eral authorities, and government agents now col¬ 
lected the money and passed it on to the territory 
tribes. 

Carver stood his turn on first guard and as he 
rode round the herd he pondered the problem in 
hand and sought for a solution which would give 
him an insight into Hinman’s purpose. It was 
not so much from the authorities but from the 
common themselves that he might expect prompt 
interference. Those who leased range in the 
Strip did not often wait upon the slow process 
of official intervention when outside brands en¬ 
croached upon their interests but took the law 
into their own hands at once. Hinman was well 
aware of that condition, Carver reflected. He 
circled the herd and sang to soothe his charges on 
the bed ground. Off across he could hear the 
voice of another night guard raised in song. He 


34 Tumbleweeds 

produced his one last coin and studied it in the 
moonlight. 

“ Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a 
million,” he chanted. “ And we’ll mount the first 
step upward if only I can fathom what Hinman 
expects of me. He don’t care a dime about sav¬ 
ing taxes on this bunch, and he knows that I can 
see the costs will outweigh the profits two to one 
even if everything goes through without a quiver. 
He and Nate Younger, while they get along per¬ 
sonal, have been whetting their tomahawks for 
each other as far back as I can remember. Now 
he leads us down here due north of the center of 
old Nate’s leases and stresses the point that I can 
maybe trade deals with any outfit off to the south 
— and Nate the only possible one I could deal 
with from this point. What time I haven’t 
worked for Hinman, I've been working for Nate, 
and Old Joe knows that Nate’s the best friend 
I’ve got outside himself. Now what’s be aiming 
at?” 

His shift on guard duty was half over before 
he found the slightest ray of light on the problem. 

“Joe must know that Nate will pounce down 
on us right off,” he mused. “ If they open the 
Strip for settlement, like Joe predicts, then 
Younger will be forced out of the game. Now 
just why does Hinman provide him with this 


Tumbleweeds 


35 

opportunity for a big final disturbance with all 
the odds on Nate’s side? He couldn’t have done 
it accidental and it appears more and more like 
he’s deliberately throwing himself wide open.” 

His mind traveled back over the events of the 
day and settled upon the scene which had trans¬ 
pired near the town well just prior to his depar¬ 
ture. 

“ There now,” he suddenly remarked. 
“ That’s sure enough the answer. Bart and Mat- 
tison didn’‘t want to carry that altercation to a 
finish but neither one would back down with 
folks looking on. These two stubborn old pirates 
are likely in a similar frame of mind. It’s always 
seemed to me someway, that they didn’t either 
one feel half so hostile toward the other as they 
made it appear. Joe’s giving Nate one final 
chance to show his hand — to take a whack at 
him or quit, hoping to cancel this old feud before 
Nate’s crowded out. He didn’t send me down 
here to keep out of trouble but shoved me right 
into it, knowing I’d do my best to make it as 
light as possible when it came. That’s all the 
idea I’ve got to work on.” 

The men breakfasted in the first light of day 
and the cows were allowed to scatter through 
the breaks on the far side of the creek. 

“ You'boys hold ’em within fair limits,” Carver 


Tumbleweeds 


36 

instructed Bradshaw. “I’ll join you up here 
this evening. If a patrol should jump you by 
any off chance, you just explain that you’re driv¬ 
ing them down to the Half Diamond H and laid 
over here a day to rest them.” 

“ They’d be sure to believe us,” Bradshaw com¬ 
mented skeptically. “ Old Nate Younger 
wouldn’t let a Kansas cow graze on the Half 
Diamond H for the price of it. Leastways not 
one of Hinman’s.” 

“ He’s maybe changed his mind,” said Carver. 
“ I’ll ride down and see.” 

He headed for the home ranch of the Half Dia¬ 
mond H, located on a branch of Cabin Creek 
some miles above that stream’s confluence with 
the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. Younger met 
him halfway, a rider having already reported the 
presence of the herd. 

“Now just what are you doing with a bunch 
of Joe Hinman’s cows in the quarantine strip and 
messing along the edge of my range? ” he de¬ 
manded. “ You’ve rode for me on enough dif¬ 
ferent occasions to know better than that.” 

“ They just came fogging down here of their 
own accord,” Carver testified. “ And I came 
after them.” 

“ I’ll see that you get plenty of help when it 
comes to running them back,” Younger offered. 


Tumbleweeds 


37 

He waved an arm toward a group of approaching 
riders. “ Here come my boys now. I’ll throw 
’em in behind those cows and jam them back 
across the line and scatter ’em over the whole west 
half of Kansas; or else take charge and hold ’em 
till I can get a detachment sent up from Fort 
Darlington to keep the whole mangy layout in 
quarantine till they’re fined more’n their market 
price. I’ll-” 

“ I wouldn’t adopt either one of those courses 
you just mentioned Nate,” Carver counselled. 
“ If a patrol jumped us I was going to proclaim 
that Joe was short of range and that you, being 
an old friend of his, had volunteered to run this 
bunch on your leases till the grass greened up 
next month. That was my idea.” 

“I’ve got another idea that beats yours all to 
hell,” Younger retorted. “ About fifteen years 
back a bunch of my stuff drifted off in a storm 
and fed out a few sections of Joe Hinman’s land 
that had blowed clear of snow. He thought I’d 
shoved ’em on there to eat him out. This is the 
first real good chance I’ve had to play even for 
what shape he left those cows of mine in after 
hazing ’em at a run through a foot of snow. 
What I’ll do to this bunch of Box T steers will 
be sufficient.” 



38 Tumbleweeds 

He motioned his grinning riders to fall in be¬ 
hind him as he headed upcountry with Carver. 

“ Then it does look as if I’d soon be out of a 
job,” Carver said, “ if you go and mess up my 
detail. Maybe you’d take me on for the summer.” 

“You was top hand for me once,” Younger 
returned. “ And you could be again if you’d 
only stay at it. Anyway, I’ll put you on for the 
summer.” 

“ This season will likely see the last big round¬ 
up of all history,” Carver predicted. “ And I 
want to be part of it. I’d sort of planned to go 
in with your wagon. I guess this is the last. The 
order is out to comb every hoof from the unowned 
lands.” 

The old man’s face clouded. Two years before 
all cowmen had been ordered to clear their stock 
from the Cherokee Strip. They had grimly re¬ 
fused, and now the order had been issued again. 

“ They mean business this time,” Carver pre¬ 
dicted. “ There’ll be cavalry patrols riding to 
keep an eye on the round-up, likely, and make 
sure that everything’s gathered and shoved out¬ 
side. There’ll be upwards of two hundred thou¬ 
sand cows collected and marketed this summer 
in order to clear the Strip.” 

“ Maybe you’re right, son,” Younger said. 
“ It’s beginning to look that way. You don’t 


Tumbleweeds 


39 

want to miss the round-up. The likes of it will 
never be seen again on this old footstool. All 
wiped out in a single season. It ain’t right. It 
just can’t be right.” 

The old man’s thoughts strayed from the im¬ 
mediate matter in hand, that of evening the old 
score with Hinman, and he nodded abstractedly 
to the comments of his younger companion. He 
was possessed of cows in plenty and if forced to 
market them he could cash in for a fortune; but 
this game was his life. Take away his cows and 
money would mean little. 

“ I was just thinking, Nate,” Carver said. 
“ It’ll take a long time to settle all this country 
up after you folks are ordered out with your 
stock, and there’ll be worlds of good range going 
to waste with nothing to eat it off. A man could 
hold a dodge-bunch down here on good feed and 
keep ’em moving from point to point. If we 
were questioned we could explain that we were 
trail herding ’em through when they up and made 
a night run off to one side; that we are just gath¬ 
ering ’em up again to move them on up to the 
Box T range.” 

“ Box T! ” Younger scoffed. “ Joe Hinman, 
that wrinkled old pirate, wouldn’t let a second 
elapse before he’d be spreading the news that I 
had a bunch down here. He’d never let a Half 


40 Tumbleweeds 

Diamond H cow set foot on his range and ever 
get off with its hide on.” 

“ But if you’d help him out now, like I said a 
while back, he’d be bound to return it out of sheer 
human decency,” Carver pointed out. “ I could 
hold a bunch down here easy. If you help Joe 
out now he can’t go back on you then.” 

“ Can’t be? ” Nate inquired. “ I don’t know.” 
The blank wall of a cowless future loomed just 
ahead. In a few more months his old brand 
would be but a tradition. The only alternative 
would be to buy out another brand in some dis¬ 
tant part where open range was still available. 
But this was his chosen territory and a move did 
not appeal. “ One time and another I’ve dealt 
him a hell-slew of trouble.” 

“ He’s put in fifteen years handing it back to 
you,” Carver said. “ That’s part of the game, the 
way the pair of you has played it. Joe’s not the 
man to stick at trifles like that.” 

Younger shook his head. 

“ Then maybe he was mistaken about how you 
felt,” said Carver. “ He gave me my instruc¬ 
tions straight enough. 4 If you strike trouble 
down there just go right to the Half Diamond H 
and get in touch with Nate Younger,’ he says. 

4 He’ll put you straight, and if he can’t fix you 


Tumbleweeds 41 

up then there’s no way out.’ That’s the last 
words he told me.” 

“ He didn’t,” Nate returned doubtfully 
“You got mixed in the names. He didn’t ever 
instruct you to look to me for anything but 
trouble.” 

“ Those were my orders,” Carver affirmed. 
“ Word for word, as near as I can recall, just as 
I recited them to you. That’s what he says, look¬ 
ing right at me, just what I told you he did.” 

“ I don’t know what he’s driving at,” Younger 
stated. “But I’ll certainly hand him a surprise. 
I’ll take him up — which’ll be exactly the last 
thing he’d counted on.” 

He tugged his hat over his eyes and turned to 
the nearest of the riders who trailed behind him. 

“You boys dangle along back and take down 
the north fence for a few hundred yards west of 
the creek,” he instructed. “ Pull the staples and 
lay the wire flat on the ground so Carver can 
cross in with his ’bunch any time.” 

The men gazed in blank astonishment at thus 
being deprived of their contemplated sport but 
they turned back without comment. 

“ That Carver now,” one youth remarked. 
“ He’s the silver-tongued little fixer. He’s some¬ 
how managed to reverse old Nate in mid-air. 


42 Tumbleweeds 

Once in Caldwell he talked me out of my last 
dollar. He did, honest.” 

“ But he spent it on you later,” another testi¬ 
fied. “ That’s him. But now he’s gone and 
ruined my whole day. I’d prefer to be jamming 
them cows north at a run to coaxing staples out 
of fence posts.” 

Some days thereafter Freel rode northward 
through the leases of the Half Diamond H, 
crossed the Salt Fork and stayed overnight at the 
home ranch of that brand. For several days the 
marshal had been visiting the widely scattered 
outfits operating in that portion of the Strip and 
making inquiries as to the whereabouts of certain 
men on a day of the preceding week. Freel knew 
the customs of the men with whom he had to deal, 
being familiar with the evasiveness which was a 
country-wide characteristic whenever one citizen 
was questioned concerning the possible operations 
of another. The marshal’s queries were therefore 
more or less desultory and wholly unproductive. 

On the date in question four masked horsemen 
had surrounded a box car recently planted beside 
the railroad track in the Cherokee Strip. This 
car had served as a station and the word “ Casa ” 
had been painted in white letters upon either end. 
The stockmen had stubbornly resisted all at¬ 
tempts to establish stations in the unowned lands, 


Tumbleweeds 


43 

foreseeing in such moves another possible link 
toward the dreaded settling of the Strip. These 
wild riders had evicted the two men stationed 
there and applied the torch to the box car which 
seemed to presage a future settlement at that 
point. The embryo city of Casa was no more. 
Freel was conscious of no particular regret over 
the fate of this defunct metropolis, but in view 
of the fact that only Federal officers were vested 
with authority in the Cherokee lands he felt it 
expedient to make a few perfunctory inquiries. 

When he rode away from the Half Diamond 
H he elected to wend his way up Cabin Creek 
and so chanced across two thousand head of Joe 
Hinman’s cows grazing in the quarantine strip. 
Freel sought out Carver and acquainted him with 
the details of the Casa raid. 

“ The Lassiters rode out of Caldwell Tuesday 
night, you recollect,” he said. They’re a shifty 
bunch of boys, the Lassiters. But Crowfoot as¬ 
sures me that they turned up at his place on Tur¬ 
key Creek early Wednesday morning and this 
Casa raid was Wednesday night. Crowfoot 
says they’ve been there straight through. That 
lets the Lassiters out.” 

Carver recalled the black scrap of cloth he had 
seen in the dresser drawer in the Lassiter’s room, 
its eye holes staring up at him. Crowfoot s 


44 Tumbleweeds 

testimony to the marshal did not cause Carver to 
revise his former estimate of the cowman; rather 
it served to strengthen his previous opinion as to 
Crowfoot’s character. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ Yes, that lets the Lassiters 
out.” 

“But it don’t have any particular bearing on 
the fact that Hinman’s cows are grazing in the 
quarantine strip,” the marshal commented. 

“ Joe’s short of range,” Carver returned. This 
was according to formula. “ We’re resting ’em 
over here for a day before taking ’em on down 
to the Half Diamond H.” 

“ That’s nice,” said Freel. “ But of course it’s 
my duty as an officer to report their presence to 
the Federal authorities. Then they can use their 
own judgment as to quarantine proceedings and 
maybe even a trespass suit. Tax-dodging, is 
he?” 

“ I’ll bet fifty even that you go and do that 
very thing,” Carver stated. 

“ How do you know? ” the marshal retorted. 
“ I’ll bet you a hundred I don’t.” 

“ A hundred is way beyond my depth,” said 
Carver. “ Even fifty would strain me most to 
pieces, but I could manage to pay it the day I 
land in Caldwell if I lost.” 

“ Fifty’s a bet,” the marshal accepted. “ I’ll 


Tumbleweeds 45 

take you on. And don’t forget to have the money 
in your clothes next time you show up in Cald¬ 
well.” 

Carver gazed after Freel’s retreating back as 
the worthy marshal rode northward toward the 
line. 

“ There goes a part of my profits,” he observed. 
“ This petty larceny milking process enlightens 
me as to why I never could warm up to Freel. 
I’d rather he’d held me up, but the man that’ll do 
one won’t do the other — not ever. It all comes 
of my being too honest. If I’d neglected to make 
that losing bet, he’d have made a report that 
might have caused old Joe some grief. My con¬ 
science has let me down for fifty. Honesty is 
maybe the best policy for the long pull but it’s 
ruinous in short spurts.” 

Someway he regretted the loss of that fifty 

• 

dollars, a sentiment hitherto unknown to him, 
for he had never valued dollars except as a means 
to an end and the end was in each case the same, 
— the swift squandering of the means. But of 
late, while riding his lonely way in charge of 
Hinman’s cows, he had pondered the possibilities 
of various projects in which he might engage, the 
accumulation of dollars, not their spending, con¬ 
stituting the ultimate objective in each case. 

When the marshal had disappeared Carver 


46 Tumbleweeds 

rode a few miles north to the crest of a high ridge, 
from which point of vantage he could sweep a 
considerable area. Off across the State line he 
could make out white points of light at intervals 
of a mile or more, and he knew them for the 
covered wagons of squatters who were camped 
just outside the Strip. He knew too that as one 
neared Caldwell he would find the intervals be¬ 
tween these camps considerably decreased and he 
made a tentative estimate that there were fifty 
such outfits camped along the line in the twenty 
miles between himself and Caldwell. For three 
months these homeless ones had been rolling up 
to the edge of the unowned lands and making 
camp. These were but the vanguard, the first 
to respond to the persistent rumor recently set 
afloat to the effect that the Strip would soon be 
thrown open for entry and free homes be made 
available for all. 

Carver allowed his mental vision to travel far 
beyond the horizon which cut off his physical 
view, and he saw other wagons coming. He pic¬ 
tured them scattered along the roads of Kansas 
Nebraska and Missouri, of Illinois and Iowa. 
From far and near the landless of a vast country 
were converging upon this last corner left un¬ 
settled, their worldly effects crowded into the 
bulging beds of old-time prairie schooners, their 


Tumbleweeds 47 

live stock trailing behind and the tousled heads 
of their youngsters peering curiously from the 
wagons as they rolled through country strange to 
them. Their pace was slow and plodding but 
intensely purposeful, a miniature reproduction of 
that general movement which had resulted in re¬ 
claiming the Great West from savagery a few 
decades before, — a movement which Carver felt 
could not long be forestalled. He addressed his 
luck piece in prophetic vein. 

“ It’s coming and we can’t head it off. In ten 
years there’ll be a squatter on every second sec¬ 
tion and the old free range cut up with fence. 
Little lonely dollar, what will you and me be do¬ 
ing then? That’s the prospect that’s looming 
just ahead of us.” 

In fact this prospect seemed nearer still when 
he crossed back with Hinman’s cows some weeks 
thereafter. With the first warm days of ap¬ 
proaching spring the slow stream of incoming 
squatters had increased and there were more out¬ 
fits camped along the line. Carver rode up to 
the ranch house in the gray light of dawn to 
report that the herd was back on Hinman’s own 
range once more. He found old Joe at break¬ 
fast and was invited to sit in. 

“ Draw up your stool and toss a feed in you,” 


48 Tumbleweeds 

the old man greeted. “ Tell me how everything 
came to pass.” 

“ It was a right uneventful trip, “ Carver re¬ 
ported. “ There was only one patrol came mess¬ 
ing through and we shifted the 'bunch down on to 
the Half Diamond H for a week or more.” 

“ The Half Diamond H! ” Hinman exclaimed. 
“ Then Nate Younger must have died without 
me getting word of it. I’ll send over some flow¬ 
ers right away. It’s a moral certainty that roan- 
whiskered old lizard wouldn’t let one of my cows 

have a spoonful of grass if he was alive and kick- 

• > ? 

mg. 

“On the contrary,” said Carver; “he put 
himself out to invite us down in case we thought 
best to pull off the quarantine belt. He ordered 
his north fence laid flat as soon as he gets word 
we’re in the country with your cows, and an¬ 
nounced that he’d be palsied and paralyzed and 
even worse than that before he’d be found lack¬ 
ing in hospitality toward a friend in need.” 

“Yes,” said Hinman. “ Go right on. What 
else did he say? ” 

“ Nothing to speak of,” Carver said. “ He did 
sort of mention that you was welcome to throw 
as much stuff as you liked on the Half Diamond 
H as long as he was running it. So you might 
say the trip was more or less of a holiday.” 


Tumbleweeds 49 

Hinman allowed his gaze to rove through the 
window and settle upon a covered wagon crawl¬ 
ing slowly southward. 

“ He’ll be crowded clear off the map inside 
another year,” Hinman said. “ I don’t suppose 
you told him about how glad I’d be to have him 
swarm over here on my grass with all his cows 
whenever he’s finally ordered out down there; 
now did you? ” 

“ I did sort of intimate that your range would 
always be wide open,” Carver stated. “ I was 
straining every little point to save the taxes on 
that bunch of cows. I’ll bet it would have totalled 
up to anyhow six hundred dollars, those taxes 
would.” 

“ Well, that’s all you agreed to do,” said Hin- 
man. “ And I guess I’d better pay you off and 
have it over with, even if you did get me into 
considerable of a snarl. Only one thing I can do 
now, since you made all those arrangements, and 
that’s to back up anything you told Nate. I 
never figured you’d let me in for anything like 
this.” 

“I’d prefer to take my pay in some other form 
than cash,” Carver announced as Hinman pro¬ 
duced his check book. “ Suppose you give me a 
bill of sale for a hundred head of coming year¬ 
lings instead of nine hundred cash and let ’em 


50 Tumbleweeds 

range with your stuff up on the west place till 
November.” 

“ You can’t spend calves,” said Hinman. 

“ I could borrow against them if I was needing 
money,” Carver explained. 

“But coming yearlings are w^orth twelve dol¬ 
lars a head,” Hinman objected. 

“ I’ll owe you the rest,” Carver offered. 

“ And when I deliver in November they’ll be 
worth more’n that. They’ll bring round sixteen 
dollars a head by then.” 

“ That’s what I was counting on,” said Carver. 
“ I like to feel every morning that I’m worth just 
a little more than I was the night before.” 

Hinman laid down the check book and re¬ 
garded him. 

“ Now it’s always struck me that you put your¬ 
self out to be worth just a mite less each morning 
than you was the night before,” he stated. 
“ Surely you haven’t gone and deserted the ranks 
of the tumbleweeds in favor of the pumpkins. I 
never knew you to set a value on a dollar.” 

“ That’s because I never chanced across just 
the right sort of dollar,” Carver explained. 
“ Now this is different.” He produced his lucky 
coin and handed it over for inspection. “ I’m 
aiming to accumulate a number of others just like 
this to keep it company.” 


Tumbleweeds 51 

Hinman inspected the silver dollar. 

“ Yes,” he said. “ This is a right unusual ap¬ 
pearing sort of coin. Don’t know as I ever see 
one just like it. Now if you really think there’s 
a chance for you to collect some more like this 
and take an interest in holding on to them, why 
we might make a deal. You’ve just effected 
quite a saving on my taxes, so I can maybe 
stretch a point. But if I don’t deliver till Novem¬ 
ber, and run ’em meantime on my grass, those 
critters will cost you fourteen apiece instead of 
twelve. You’ll be owing me five hundred in place 
of three.” 

“ I don’t mind owing you,” said Carver 
“ We’ll close the deal.” 

As he rode away from the Box T he sang: 

“ Oh, I’ve risked many dollars 
On the rambling tumbleweed 
And only one on pumpkins 
But that one went to seed,” 


Ill 



The crest of the watershed separating the flow 
between the Salt Fork and the Cimarron was also 
the dividing line between Crowfoot’s range and 
the leases of the Half Diamond H. Carver 
crossed over this low divide and angled toward 
Turkey Creek to intersect its course at a point 
near Crowfoot’s place. Here the majority of the 
range stock wore the straggling brand intended 
to represent a bird’s claw, the badge of Crow¬ 
foot’s ownership. 

Carver viewed the ranch buildings from the 
shoulder of a hill, noting particularly the corral 
which was fashioned as a solid stockade some ten 
feet high. Crowfoot had entered into a beef con¬ 
tract with the railroad and his slaughtering was 
conducted within this small enclosure. Carver 
entertained positive convictions as to the purpose 
of this arrangement but in common with others 
of his kind he made a religion of remaining 
strictly incurious regarding the calling or customs 
of acquaintances except in so far as they might 
affect his own immediate affairs. 

He turned his horse up the Turkey Creek bot- 


« 


Tumbleweeds 53 

toms and followed that stream for a dozen miles, 
then angled away to the right toward the Half 
Diamond H range. When well up the gentle 
slope he rode out on to the rim of a pocket. The 
scattering trees in the bottoms indicated the 
presence of water. A spring branch probably 
headed in the pocket and drained back toward 
Turkey Creek, he reflected. He pulled up his 
horse as a woman’s voice floated up to him. 
Somewhere down 'below him a girl was singing, 
and Carver headed his horse down the slope 
toward the sound. 

A sod house nestled under the hill beside the 
trickling spring creek. The singing ceased 
abruptly and a girl appeared in the door of the 
sod house at the sound of his horse’s hoofs in the 
yard. 

For the second time Carver saw her framed in 
a doorway and he was conscious of a sudden 
pleased conviction that she should always choose 
a similar setting. The drab surroundings served 
only as a background to hold her vivid youth and 
charm in more startling relief. Carver recol¬ 
lected that he had mauled one brother in no gentle 
fashion and was held accountable for another’s 
day of transgressions; in consequence he feared 
a cool reception from the sister. Instead, her 
face lighted with sudden recognition. 


54 Tumbleweeds 

“ Oh, it’s you! ” she greeted. “ Bart will be 
coming home any time now and he’d be so sorry 
if he missed you. Won’t you step down off your 
horse and wait? ” 

She sat on the doorsill and motioned Carver to 
a seat on a bench against the cabin. He removed 
his hat and tilted back against the sod wall as she 
explained that Bart was even now overdue. As 
they talked it was quite evident that all her 
thoughts centered round the younger brother. 
Carver found the tones of her voice as pleasant to 
his ear as the sight of her was pleasing to his 
eyes, and he was content to listen, hoping mean¬ 
while that Bart would never come. 

He knew this for a Crowfoot line camp, re¬ 
cently installed, which accounted for the fact that 
he had not chanced across it the year before. The 
Lassiters, therefore, must ride for Crowfoot, he 
decided. 

“ Bart and I only came down last week,” she 
said. “ We’ve been living in your little house in 
Caldwell. Did you know? ” 

“ I gave him the key and told him the place 
was his,” Carver said. “ But I’d have straight¬ 
ened it up a bit if I’d known he was going to 
install you there.” 

“ It was supremely tidy,” she complimented. 


Tumbleweeds 55 

“ Which was a distinct surprise. Most men’s 
housekeeping is rather the reverse.” 

Her gaze kept wandering off down the bot¬ 
toms for some sign of Bart’s return. 

“ I do hope he comes,” she said. 

“ I’m real anxious to see Bart,” he confessed. 
“ I certainly hope he turns up sometime inside 
of the next three or four hours for this is my busy 
day and I couldn’t conscientiously wait on him 
longer than that.” 

His tones expressed only a mild anxiety over 
the possible non-arrival of his friend. 

“ Do please stay the very limit, at least,” she 
urged, and laughed up at him. “You know, 
you’re like Bart in a great many ways.” Carver 
someway felt that he knew her better after that 
laugh. “Don’t you think you two are somewhat 
alike? ” 

He had divined the close bond between this 
girl and her brother and now made swift use of 
the knowledge. 

“ Bart and I are so similar that we might easy 
be mistaken for twins,” he admitted. “ You 
might say we’re almost identical.” 

“ He means a lot to me Bart does,” she 
said. “ In most ways he’s a lovable youngster, 
but-” 

Carver leaned back with an audible sigh. 



56 Tumbleweeds 

“ Tell me all about Bart,” he urged. 

“ I will,” she agreed. “ In most ways he’s 
likable but he’s as wild as a hawk. He is abso¬ 
lutely irresponsible and will commit any reckless 
folly on a second’s notice without a thought of 
future consequences. The future means not one 
thing to him. He’s sublimely confident that 
every new day stands by itself, entirely unrelated 
to either yesterday or to-morrow. And he’s too 
easily led. Now don’t you think you two are 
considerably alike? ” 

Carver considered this at some length. 

“ There’s some few particulars wherein our 
make-ups branch way out apart,” he testified. 
“ On those points we’re altogether dissimilar. 
Now me, I just can’t be led. I’m sometimes 
misled, maybe, but never plain led. And so far 
as the relation of one day to another ” — he pro¬ 
duced a silver dollar and regarded it — “ why 
nothing could possibly convince me that five 
weeks ago last Tuesday wasn’t close kin to to¬ 
day.” The girl’s mind flashed back to that first 
meeting as he smiled across at her and continued: 
“ And I’m hoping that there’ll be other days in 
the future that’ll belong to the same family 
group. You’d be downright surprised to know 
how far my mind wanders into the future — and 
you accusing me of not looking ahead.” 


Tumbleweeds 57 

“ He’s told me a lot about you,” she said. 
“ You’re the supreme chief of the tumbleweeds, 
from what I gather; openly irresponsible.” 

“On the contrary, I’m apt to take my respon¬ 
sibilities too much to heart if I don’t watch my¬ 
self,” he defended. “ Do you consider a state of 
responsibility one to strive for? ” Then, as she 
nodded, “ Hereafter I’ll track down responsibili¬ 
ties like a duck collects Junebugs, and assume 
one after the next.” 

“ I’ve raised Bart from a baby,” she said. 
“ And I don’t want to see him go over to the wild 
bunch. He likes you a lot. Use that influence to 
steady him, won’t you, instead of the other 
way? ” 

“ Just what is the main thing you want Bart 
to stay clear of ? ” he asked. 

“ I want him to run straight,” she said. 

Carver rose to take his leave, his departure 
hastened by the sight of a horseman through the 
trees far down the bottoms. And the rider was 
not Bart. He had no desire to meet Noll Las¬ 
siter during his first real visit with the girl, and 
he somehow knew the identity of the man who 
approached. 

“ Maybe I can do Bart a trifle of good in 
spots,” he said, as he stood before her. “ And 


58 Tumbleweeds 

I’ll guarantee not to do him any great amount 
of harm.” 

“ Thanks,” she said, rising to face him and ex¬ 
tending her hand. “ I knew you’d do it.” 

Carver retained the hand and leaned to kiss her 
as she stood looking up at him. The girl stepped 
back and studied him, evidencing no annoyance 
but seeming rather to try to determine the 
thought which had occasioned the act and search¬ 
ing for a possible trace of disrespect. Carver 
met her eyes fairly. 

“ You oughtn’t to have smiled just at that par¬ 
ticular moment,” he said. 

“ You see, you are irresponsible,” she pointed 
out. “ That’s exactly what Bart would have 
done. You yield to any passing whim.” 

“ That wasn’t any passing whim,” he cor¬ 
rected. “ It was one powerful impulse; and it’s 
permanent — not passing. It’s related to to-day 
and five weeks ago Tuesday, and I’m hoping it’s 
related to to-morrow.” 

She disregarded this except for an almost im¬ 
perceptible shake of her head. 

“But you will remember about Bart,” she 
urged. 

“ I’ll try and collect all Bart’s loose ends and 
shape him up into one solid pattern of pro¬ 
priety,” he promised. “You won’t hardly know 



Tumbleweeds 59 

him for the same party after I’ve worked him 
over.” He swung to the saddle. “ But I’ll have 
to put in considerable time over here conferring 
with you if we’re going to make a success out of 
Bart.” 

He turned his horse to leave but the approach¬ 
ing rider had hastened through the last belt of 
trees and he now held up a hand and signalled 
Carver to wait. Lassiter pulled up his horse 
abruptly as he discovered Carver’s identity. 

“ I thought it was Wellman,” he stated surlily. 
“ Who asked you here? This is a little off your 
range.” 

“ I travel on a roving permit,” Carver said. 
He explored his pockets as if seeking the docu¬ 
ment and an expression of mock concern over¬ 
spread his face. “ I declare, I must have mislaid 
it somehow. But I believe I showed it to you 
once before; and anyway, I’m going now.” 

He nodded a casual good-by to the girl, turned 
his back on Lassiter and departed. As he 
mounted the cow trail leading out of the head of 
the pocket he met Bart Lassiter coming down. 

“ I’ve just been over to your house visiting 
round with Miss Molly,” Carver greeted. “ Noll 
came riding up and I someway gathered the im¬ 
pression that he wasn’t glad to see me.” 


6 o Tumbleweeds 

The two lolled sidewise in their saddles. Bart 
looked down the bottoms toward the sod house. 

“ I’d keep an eye peeled for Noll,” he advised. 
“ He’s out for you if he sees the right chance. If 
you don’t watch sharp your horse will -come 
dangling in some day without a rider.” 

“Sho! ” Carver deprecated. “ It’s been against 
the law to kill folks for a long time now.” 

“ I know,” said Bart. “ But the mere fact 
that we’ve got a law like that proves that maybe 
some one did get killed once and there’s a chance 
it might happen again.” 

“ He’s been telling you things,” Carver 
guessed. “ Likely he was just easing his mind.” 

“ Noll didn’t tell me a word,” Bart denied. 
“ He don’t need to. I know him. He rode hard 
on me with a club, up until I outgrew him, and I 
can read what’s going on in his mind. I put in 
all my early years dodging, until one day he 
cuffed Molly; then I forgot my timidity and 
pulled down his meat house. It was weeks be¬ 
fore he was up and around. He’ll bear watch¬ 
ing. I don’t mean to infer that Noll’s all charged 
with valor, which he’s not, but he’s certainly 
loaded to the ears with meanness and he’ll take 
a chance if the odds are all his way and no one 
looking on.” 

“ Then I’ll take to surveying my back track,” 


Tumbleweeds 61 

Carver promised. “ Because if we meet it will 
likely be from the rear.” 

“ That’s where,” Bart agreed. 

“ What’s to hinder my taking you on as a 
bodyguard, sort of ? ” Carver suggested. “ I’m 
going in with the Half Diamond H wagon. Old 
Nate would put you on.” 

“ The three of us are leaving for the X I L in 
a day or two,” said Bart. “ Otherwise I’d go 
you. Milt has been trail boss for the XIL for 
the last four summers and brought their trail 
herds through. Always before we’ve gone on 
back and wintered there, but this season we laid 
over to help Crowfoot.” 

Carver turned this arrangement over in his 
mind. The XIL was a Texas brand running 
south of the’Washita country. 

“ I’ll have a little deal on this fall after round¬ 
up,” he said. “ And I’d like to have you cut in 
with me, provided you don’t hang out at Crow¬ 
foot’s. I’m not over-squeamish and there’s one 
time and another when I’ve rode for outfits 
whose methods was open to question. Most rid¬ 
ers have. But folks are coming to frown on ir¬ 
regularities and it’s time a man reads his signs 
right and quits before it’s just too late.” 

“ Oh, absolutely,” Bart agreed easily. “ I can 
see that plain.” 


62 Tumbleweeds 

“ It’s my surmise that there’s a right small per¬ 
centage of the meat that goes to fill Crowfoot’s 
contracts with the railroad that is dressed out of 
steers wearing his own brand,” Carver said. “ Of 
course, he’s too smart to cut in on his neighbors* 
and they don’t bother to get curious as long as 
they know their own strays are safe on his range. 
But it’s my guess that if a steer from some for¬ 
eign outfit turns up on the Turkey Creek range 
he’ll get converted into beef overnight.” 

Lassiter grinned and wagged a negative head. 

“ Now you wouldn’t go and suspect Crowfoot 
of filling his beef contracts at other folks’ ex¬ 
pense,” he reproved. “ Besides, how could he 
when it’s the law that whenever a cow critter is 
butchered its hide must be hung on the fence till 
it’s been inspected and passed? ” 

“ And our present hide inspector would ride 
miles out of his way rather than meet a fresh hide 
face to face,” Carver testified. “ I expect maybe 
Crowfoot kills out a batch of his own steers, about 
every third slaughtering. That way there’d al¬ 
ways be enough fresh hides of his own brand 
hanging round the place to make it look right. 
But he wouldn’t dress out any more of his own 
till after one batch of pelts was too dried out to 
answer. He’s not that improvident.” 

“ Well, maybe not,” Bart said. “ I couldn’t 


Tumbleweeds 63 

say for sure. What has Crowfoot done to you 
to»start you commenting on his habits? ” 

“Not anything? ” Carver confessed. “ I don’t 
even lose sleep over what he’s doing to other 
folks. I’m generalizing, kind of. Things are 
changing rapid and a man had better let his 
glance rove a few years ahead.” 

“ Hadn’t he, though? ” Bart concurred. He 
didn’t inquire as to the nature of Carver’s propo¬ 
sition, for it mattered not at all. “ We’ll put on 
our telescopes and spy out a soft berth for the 
future. That’s us. You can count me in till the 
hair slips.” 

With this casual promise they separated. 
Carver reviewed his recent utterances with some 
doubt as he rode across the divide. 

“ That’s the first time I ever aspired to turn 
evangelist,” he said. “ And I’m awkward at it. 
The role don’t become me any to speak of, but 
I’ve committed myself to take Bart in hand.” 

Three days later he rode again to the little sod 
house on the spring creek. He came upon it 
from behind, his horse’s hoofs making but slight 
sound on the springy turf. Not until he had dis¬ 
mounted and rounded the corner on foot did he 
discover that a saddled horse stood on the far side 
of the house. He stopped short, wondering 
which of the three brothers might be at home. 


64 Tumbleweeds 

While he hesitated a man’s voice sounded from 
within, and it was not that of any one of the 
Lassiters. He took another step toward the 
door but halted again as he detected a threat in 
the tones of the man inside. 

“ You listen to reason or I’ll have Bart locked 
up for the rest of his natural life,” the voice pro¬ 
claimed. “ And that within the next two days. 
I know his whereabouts on a certain night two 
years ago, when a saloon in Taosin was ran¬ 
sacked.” 

“ You’ve told me all that,” said the girl. “ But 
even if you could prove it, why Bart was only 
seventeen then.” 

“ There’s places where they keep such naughty 
children,” the man pointed out. “ Then he was 
into that Casa affair, when the station was 
burned.” 

This statement enabled Carver to identify the 
man whose voice had seemed vaguely familiar. 
It could be no other than Freel. 

“ I’ve got a line on the whole past of the Las¬ 
siters,” Freel resumed. “Clear back prior to 
when the old man was alive. He’d be wanted 
too, on a dozen counts, if he was still above 
ground. You know what it is to have the law 
always barking at your door. If you take up 
with me folks would respect you. But any one 


Tumbleweeds 65 

in this whole country will tell you that Freel is a 
bad man to have on the other side. You don’t 
want me lined up against the Lassiters, girl.” 

Carver stepped to the door. Freel’s back was 
toward him but he could see the girl’s face. 
There was no trace of apprehension there, only 
distaste for the man before her. Her eyes wid¬ 
ened with surprise as they met Carver’s and as 
she divined his purpose she made a move to sta¬ 
tion herself between the two men but Carver held 
up a hand to halt her. Freel had whirled to 
face the door when the girl’s face betrayed the 
presence of a third party. He recovered his 
self-confidence, shaken for the moment, with the 
discovery of the intruder’s identity. 

“ Morning,” he greeted casually. “ Any more 
wagers on your mind to-day? ” 

“ Yes,” said Carver. “ Step outside. I’m 
going to make you another little bet.” 

He stepped aside as the marshal passed 
through the door, then followed and closed it 
behind him. 

“ This wager’s not going to be in money,” 
Carver said. “ If I lose I’ll look you up and 
explain to you what the stakes are. I’m betting 
that you don’t ever pass out any remarks about 
Bart Lassiter or his sister. The bridle’s off as far 


66 


Tumbleweeds 


as the other two boys are concerned. You can 
go as far as you like with them.” 

Freel sized him up, sensing a new quality in 
the man before him, a certain tenseness which 
Carver concealed beneath the cloak of casual 
speech. 

“You drop out of this,” he advised. “ I was 
offering to marry Miss Lassiter when you 
romped in.” 

“ Offering to,” said Carver. “ I thought may¬ 
be you was threatening to.” 

“ Any girl of the Lassiter tribe ought to be 
damn glad of an opportunity to marry and 
live respectable,” Freel stated, and was instantly 
aware that he had made a grave mistake, for 
that quality which he had sensed in Carver was 
now quite openly apparent in his eyes. 

“ So you’re going to make her respectable,” 
Carver said. “ That’s real generous of you, I’d 
say. It’s rumored around that you set up to be 
a bad one. I just heard you confess it. Let’s 
see how wicked you can be when your badness 
all boils over.” 

He took a step toward Freel and the marshal 
backed away, reading Carver’s purpose in his 
eyes. 

“ It’s never my policy to start a quarrel with¬ 
out good reason,” he announced. 


Tumbleweeds 67 

“ I’m laying myself out to supply the reason,” 
Carver said. “ I always did want to see a 
regular desperado working at his trade.” He 
removed his hat with his left hand and brought 
it with a back-handed slash across the marshal’s 
face. “ You’re wicked clear through,” he said. 
“ You’re just as bad as you can be.” 

He swung the hat twice again but Freel 
turned and walked toward his horse. 

“ You’re not bad; you’re just tainted,” Carver 
stated. “ I always felt that about you and now 
I know for sure.” 

The marshal mounted and turned upon Carver 
a face set in lines of stern disapproval. 

“ I refuse to force an issue except in the 
regular routine of duty,” he proclaimed, “ This 

is not a matter of official business. Other- 

• >> 
wise- 

He intended that the unfinished statement 
should carry an impressive implication ot power 
held in reserve and which he controlled only 
with the greatest difficulty. He turned and rode 
off down the bottoms. 

“ I feel like I’d just come in off a spree,” 
Carver told himself. “ It shakes a man up some¬ 
thing fearful to let his temper go running wild 
all over the lot. I oughtn’t to have lost hold of 
myself.” 



68 


Tumbleweeds 


He regarded the closed door. A sharp rap 
sounded from the inside of it and Carver smiled 
as he speculated as to how many people of his 
acquaintance would have respected his unspoken 
wish that the door remain closed. The rap 
sounded again. 

“ Come in,” he called. 

She opened the door and answered his smile, 
her eyes following the marshal as he disappeared 
in the scattering black jacks of the bottoms. 

“ Thank you,” she said. “ I’m glad you came 
just when you did. But I’m sorry if you made 
an enemy of him. I really don’t mind him — 
much.” 

“ He’s right harmless,” said Carver. “ But 
apt to be annoying. I don’t surmise he’ll be 
turning up here again.” 

He knew that the marshal operated only on 
safe ground. Freel had known that both elder 
brothers would be entirely indifferent to any 
course he might adopt toward Molly Lassiter if 
only it afforded a measure of protection for 
themselves; and she would not mention any such 
occurrence to Bart lest it precipitate trouble 
between himself and Freel. 

The girl motioned him to a seat on the bench. 

“You did remember your promise of the other 
day,” she commended. “ About Bart, I mean. 


Tumbleweeds 69 

He said you’d pointed out the narrow pathway 
and invited him to join forces.” 

“ I never did set up as a reformer,” Carver 
admitted, “ and it likely sounded a mite unnat¬ 
ural, coming from me.” 

“ Bart was a little vague about the plans,” she 
said. “ Do you mind telling me what the prop¬ 
osition was? ” 

“ I couldn’t say any offhand,” he confessed. 
“You see I just put it up to him and was intend¬ 
ing to work out the details later on. There, 
now! ” he complained, as she laughed at this lack 
of definiteness. “ You’re doubting my stability 
again. There’s numerous ways open for me to 
follow.” He checked them off on his fingers. “ I 
might get appointed marshal in Freel’s place and 
there’s any number of folks would contribute to 
my success. I could assist Crowfoot to fill his 
beef contracts; or I could get the job of hide 
inspector and Crowfoot would then assist me.” 

Beneath this facetious recitation of possibilities 
she read in his reference to Crowfoot a deliberate 
intention to apprise her of the fact that the man’s 
methods were open to question, leaving her to 
devise her own means of utilizing the knowledge 
in so far as it related to Bart’s employment by 
Crowfoot. 


70 Tumbleweeds 

“ The boys are all leaving for the X I L in a 
few days now,” she returned. 

“ This man Bronson that owns the X I L — 
he’s someway related to Crowfoot,” said Carver. 
“ Seems like I’ve heard he was. Anyway, there’s 
some connection. I spoke for a job for Bart with 
the Half Diamond H wagon and was hoping he’d 
take it on.” 

When Carver rose to leave he rested his hands 
on her shoulders as’ she stood facing him. 

“ The round-up will cut into our conferences 
but I’m looking forward to resuming them after 
it s over. 

She stepped back and shook her head as he 
leaned toward her. 

“ Don’t forget how much I’m like Bart,” he 
urged. “ And you know you’d do that much for 
him. You might try it on me once, just for simi¬ 
larity’s sake.” 

The girl faced him gravely. 

“ I’m going to absolve you from that promise,” 
she said. “ Try and forget all about the Lassi¬ 
ters. We bring bad luck.” 

“ It’s too late to staid forgetting; and besides, 
I cut my first baby teeth on a horseshoe,” he re¬ 
turned; “ and from that day on down to date I’ve 
been the greatest sort of a hand to counteract bad 
luck. It positively refuses to settle in my neigh- 


Tumbleweeds 71 

borhood. I’ll tell you all about it, Honey, as soon 
as the round-up’s over.” 

She stood and watched him ride off up the 
country, returning his salutation when he turned 
in his saddle and waved to her as he reached the 
rim of the pocket. 

He spent the night at a line camp and the next 
day made a long ride into Caldwell, dismounting 
before his little cabin in the early evening. A 
blanketed figure prowled uneasily at the far side 
of the street as Carver unsaddled, then crossed 
over and padded silently along the path that led 
to the house. 

“ Me like whiskey,” the Indian stated. 

“ Yes,” said Carver. “ So do I. But they do 
say it’s a sinful appetite.” 

The red man pondered this. 

“ Me buy whiskey,” he amended, exhibiting a 
gold piece. 

“ I’m just out,” said Carver. “ Try next 
door.” 

The Indian departed, only to be replaced some 
few minutes later by a second applicant. Carver 
recalled the incident of the two black bottles on 
that other day when he had first met Bart Lassi¬ 
ter in the Silver Dollar. 

“ Bart has been up to some more financing,” he 
reflected. “ While Molly was downtown some- 


72 Tumbleweeds 

where, he was busy irrigating the Cherokee 
nation at a profit. I’ve heard somewheres that 
if you do any one thing better than your neigh¬ 
bors the world will beat a pathway to your door 
— and this path looks well-worn and much- trav¬ 
eled. I’ll have to speak to Bart about this.” 

He retired for the night after a third thirsty 
soul had made the pilgrimage down the pathway 
to the door. 

“ Before I can straighten out Molly’s affairs,” 
he said, “ it does look as if I’d have to discharge 
a marshal, reform one brother and practice homi¬ 
cide on another.” 

With this disquieting reflection be dropped in¬ 
stantly asleep. An hour later his awakening was 
equally abrupt. It is given only to those who live 
much in the open to wake suddenly from pro¬ 
found slumber with every faculty alert. When 
Carver opened his eyes he was conscious that 
something was amiss. He continued his regular 
deep breathing as if still wrapped in sleep. His 
horse fidgeted nervously in the lean-to shed be¬ 
hind; but he knew that this sound, being one to 
which he was accustomed, would not have roused 
him. The spring lock on the door had clicked 
slightly as if under the manipulation of a stealthy 
hand and the sound had penetrated his conscious¬ 
ness even while he slept. Probably another 



Tumbleweeds 


73 

parched but hopeful Cherokee, he reflected, but 
he rose noiselessly and stepped to the window. 

“ I didn’t start discharging and homiciding 
soon enough,” he told himself. 

Freel and Noll Lassiter stood outside in the 
bright moonlight, the latter having just stepped 
back within Carver’s range of vision after testing 
the spring lock on the door. Carver turned 
swiftly and donned shirt and trousers. The latch 
clicked again as he pulled on his chaps; then 
came a sharp knock at the door. Carver did not 
answer but finished buckling his belt and drew on 
one boot. The rap was repeated. 

“Ho!” Carver called loudly, as if suddenly 
roused from heavy sleep. “ What’s going on? ” 

“ It’s Freel,” the deputy’s voice answered. 

“ Oh,” said Carver. “ Come on in. I’m in 
bed.” 

“ Door’s locked,” Freel returned. 

“ Must have blown shut,” Carver stated. 
“ There’s a spring lock on it. Wait a minute and 
I’ll pile into some clothes and let you in. What 
do you want, anyway, at this time of night? ” 

“ There’s been complaints lodged against you 
for selling whiskey to the Cherokees,” Freel ex¬ 
plained apologetically. “ I don’t suppose there’s 
anything to it but I was ordered to make the 
arrest. You can clear yourself likely.” 


Tumbleweeds 


74 

Carver laughed easily. 

“ Why, man! This is the first time I’ve been 
here in two months,” he scoffed. “ They won’t 
keep me overnight.” 

“ I hope not,” said Freel. “ It’s the pen if 
they cinch you — Federal law, you know. I 
didn’t like the idea of coming after you but I was 
ordered to do it.” 

“ I’ll be with you in a minute,” Carver an¬ 
swered cheerfully. “ I can explain it easy 
enough.” 

He thumped the bed with the edge of his hand 
in imitation of a bare foot descending upon the 
floor. 

“ Killed while resisting arrest,” he said to him¬ 
self, his mind working swiftly. “ This is just a 
plain old-fashioned killing. Freel knows I 
wouldn’t be so simple as to start shooting over 
being picked up on a fool charge like this. I’d 
take it more as a joke. He’ll step in to talk it 
over while Noll pots me from outside. Neigh¬ 
bors hear shots — a regular battle in progress 
— and later, at the inquest, it transpires that my 
gun’s been shot empty. They can prove that 
Cherokees have been buying bottles here, whether 
I did it or not, and Freel, having heard about it, 
had come out to investigate. I put up a desper¬ 
ate fight but went down in the smoke — died 


Tumbleweeds 75 

hard as it were, but real dead. But they wouldn’t 
do it before I was dressed. That might appear 
like they’d slaughtered me in my sleep. 

Meanwhile he commented in disjointed frag¬ 
ments to Freel. 

“ I’ll go on down with you and explain it. It’s 
a right foolish charge.” He was now fully 
dressed. “ They’ll let me out by to-morrow so it 
don’t matter any.” And to himself, “ After 
Noll’s first shot there’s two from inside. Neigh¬ 
bors look out into the moonlight. Freel has 
ducked back outside and they see him prone on 
the ground shooting into the house. He rushes 
the open door, calling out to me to surrender in 
the name of the law, and the neighbors all hear 
him. There’s sounds of a struggle inside; chairs 
overturned, and there’s shooting. A regular hell¬ 
roaring combat — and me dead on the floor all 
the time.” 

He moved to the window. Lassiter was no¬ 
where in sight. 

“ Flat against the house between the window 
and the door,” he decided; then aloud to Freely 
“ Any one with you? ” 

“ Not a soul,” Freel lied. 

“Better so; maybe we can figure out some 
little bet whereby it would be to your advantage 
to help me come clear of this charge.” He was 


Tumbleweeds 


76 

now fully clothed and he crossed to the door with¬ 
out permitting his boot heels to touch the floor. 
“Can’t find a match,” he complained, fumbling at 
the catch. “ Come in and strike a light while I 
hop into my clothes. I'm in my nightie.” He 
opened the door, standing back from the streak 
of moonlight which streamed through. Freel 
would shoot if he saw that Carver was already 
dressed. 

“ I’ll just wait here,” Freel said. 

“ And pot me as I step out,” Carver mentally 
completed. 

“ You’ll be out on bond in an hour,” Freel 
resumed. His head was within a foot of the door 
as he attempted to peer inside. 

Carver swung his gun with deadly precision 
and Freel collapsed,without a word as the heavy 
weapon descended solidly upon his skull. Before 
the deputy had fairly struck the ground Carver 
was peering round the door jamb with the gun 
levelled on Lassiter who was flattened against 
the house some three feet from the door. 

“Steady! Let it slide out of your hand!” 
Carver ordered. 

Lassiter’s slow brain had scarcely grasped the 
fact that his plans had gone amiss, and even as 
the hand which held his gun relaxed in response 


Tumbleweeds 


77 

to the order, Carver took one swift half step 
round the door and swung his own weapon again. 

Ten minutes later he had saddled and was rid¬ 
ing out of town. As he cleared it, he chanted a 
verse wherein the tumbleweed rebuked the slug¬ 
gish pumpkin for sticking to its garden patch as 
Thanksgiving day approached. 


“You can lay right there and wait 
To be turned into pies and tarts. 

But me. I’ll jump the fence right now 
And head for other parts.” 

“ Freel’s bringing me in feet first, like he’d 
planned, could be easy explained,” Carver re¬ 
flected. “ But a live active prisoner is different. 
The last thing in this world he’d want is to book 
me for trial. I couldn’t force myself on him as a 
captive. Next time I meet Freel out in com¬ 
pany I’ll surrender and insist that he puts me 
under arrest.” 


The cook wagon lumbered down Cabin Creek 
toward the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. A dozen 
hands, riding in couplets, straggled irregularly 
behind. The bed wagon followed and the horse 
wrangler brought up the rear with the remuda 
which numbered some two hundred head of 
horses, including the string of extra mounts for 
each round-up hand who rode with the Half Dia¬ 
mond H wagon. 

A rider waited on the far bank of the Salt 
Fork with his string of extra horses and the men 
speculated idly as to whether he represented 
Crowfoot or the Coldstream Pool, it being the 
custom to exchange “ reps ” to ride with neigh¬ 
boring wagons. The horseman proved to be Bart 
Lassiter, repping for Crowfoot. Carver’s inti¬ 
mation as to Crowfoot’s methods and their possi¬ 
ble connection with the X I L trail herd, dropped 
on the occasion of his last visit with Molly Las¬ 
siter, had borne fruit. The Half Diamond H 
crew had been full-handed but the girl had in¬ 
duced Bart to ride with their wagon as Crow¬ 
foot’s rep instead of accompanying his half- 
brothers to the X I L. 


Tumbleweeds 79 

Lassiter threw his extra mounts in with the 
remuda and joined Carver, who opened up on 
him without parley. 

“ I tendered you the key to my little house so 
that you could use it for living purposes,” he said, 
“ but without any notion that you’d start up in 
business. From all that I can gather you set 
out to abate the thirst of the whole Cherokee 
Nation.” 

“ Well, the poor devils are fixed up every other 
way,” Bart explained. “ They draw beef rations, 
flour rations, blanket issues and so on, but no¬ 
body’s ever been thoughtful enough to provide 
them with licker rations, so they’re forced to live 
a one-sided, unbalanced kind of existence and I 
was striving to supply the lack and sort of round 
out their lives.” 

“ An’ you came near to finishing mine,” Car¬ 
ver stated. 

“ It was only that once,” Bart defended. “ I 
did dispose of several cases at a right handsome 
profit and you’ve no notion how much they en¬ 
joyed theirselves the next night. It would have 
done your heart good to have heard it. All Cald¬ 
well turned out to listen to the expansive sounds 
emanating from the Cherokee camp south of 
town.” 

Carver had placed that first illusive impression 


8o 


Tumbleweeds 


that Molly Lassiter was in grave need of some¬ 
thing without which her life was not quite com¬ 
plete. It was no material requirement but a need 
that was deeper than that. She despised the 
ways of the two older half-brothers, who had been 
practically strangers to her during her own early 
life, showing up at her father’s home but infre¬ 
quently. Later, after her own mother’s death, 
they had returned and made it their home. There 
had never been any bond between them and her¬ 
self, and she had feared the effect their ways 
might exercise upon Bart. Freel had spoken the 
truth when he asserted that she knew what it was 
to have the law always barking at her door. Car¬ 
ver knew now that what she most needed was 
peace, — assurance that the same old conditions 
would not pertain to her life and Bart’s. 

“ Why do you put Molly up against that sort 
of thing? ” he demanded. 

“ She didn’t know,” Bart returned. 

“ But she’d know if they happened to clamp 
down on you for it,” Carver insisted. “ And 
that’s what she’s guarding against. She’s always 
had that sort of thing to fight off.” 

“ She has for a fact,” Bart admitted. “ The 
old man was a hard citizen himself, way back in 
his youth. He’d quieted down for a good many 
years but after the two boys came back he sort of 


Tumbleweeds 81 

leaned their way again. There’s been times when 
Molly and me was kids, and left all alone in the 
house or wherever we happened to be at the time, 
that folks would come round inquiring about his 
whereabouts, and the old man hiding out in the 
hills about them. She thought a lot of him, Molly 
did, and hated Milt and Noll for leading him off.” 

“ Then why don’t you shake them? ” Carver 
demanded. “ There’s no common bond between 
you and them, and Molly would be way better 
off.” 

“ I’ve made the break now and again,” Bart 
explained. “ But they always turn up. Our 
family line-up is fashioned after that fabled joint 
snake. ‘You can disrupt the critter but the pieces 
crawl back together again and all stand united.” 

“ If there’s any more midnight visits made at 
my cabin,” said Carver; “there’ll be one middle 
joint absent from the next family reunion.” 

“ I take it you’re referring to Noll,” said Bart. 
“If you’ll only accept my earnest advice you’ll 
decoy Noll off to some quiet spot and snap a cap 
at him. I promise it won’t upset me a bit.” 

On the third day out from the ranch Carver 
rode with Nate Younger along a low ridge 
studded with a straggling stand of black-jack 
timber. The old man’s face was stern and set as 


82 Tumbleweeds 

he viewed the procession filing for two miles 
along the open bottoms below them. 

A dozen round-up crews made up the picture, 
for this was a cooperative move by all the outfits 
ranging in the Strip, the great final combing of 
stock from the unowned lands. 

Far up the valley, a mere speck in the distance, 
the Half Diamond H wagon led the way while 
the others trailed at intervals. Two hundred 
riders, the personnel probably including the most 
efficient body of cowhands in the world, straggled 
up the bottoms in irregular formation. The 
extra horses, if combined into one cavayado 
would number over two thousand head. A group 
of riders hovered near the last wagon, it having 
encountered difficulties in making the crossing of 
the Cimarron, resuming their way as the quick¬ 
sands relinquished their sucking hold upon the 
wheels and the floundering horses snaked the 
lumbering vehicle out upon the solid shore. A 
band of twenty Cherokees flanked the cavalcade 
and dashed from one outfit to the next, begging 
food from each wagon boss in turn. Midway of 
the procession a detachment of cavalry rode in 
double file while the officer in command conferred 
with the man in charge of that particular wagon. 
As Carver watched they dropped back abreast of 
the next in line and he knew the message deliv- 


i 


Tumbleweeds 83 

ered to each one in turn by the soldiery, — the 
instructions to make a thorough sweep and clear 
every head of stock from the Cherokee Strip. 

The Indians, having gathered contributions 
sufficient for the moment, including a steer which 
was pointed out to them by the owner of the 
brand worn by the animal, hazed this moveable 
meat supply to the crest of an adj acent knoll and 
there dropped it with an accompaniment of rifle 
shots. Younger waved a hand toward the scene 
spread out before him. 

“ That’s the way I saw the Old West first,” he 
said. “ The picture is mighty near identical; the 
wagons rolling along just like that, only drawn 
up in more tight formation; the cavayado trailing 
under guard, holding all the extra horses of the 
settlers; maybe a band of marauding reds clus¬ 
tered off to one side like them that are hacking up 
that steer; sometimes a little escort of troopers 
helping us at bad crossings where the Kiowas 
and Comanches was most liable to jump us while 
a part of the train was bogged down in the sand. 
The wagons was more likely dragged by bulls 
than horses then, and buffalo was scattered round 
the landscape in place of range cows, but on the 
whole the picture tallies close enough.” The old 
man turned his gaze away. “ That’s the way we 
was first ushered into the Old West, son. Maybe 


84 Tumbleweeds 

it’s fitting that we’re being similarly ushered out 
of the last bit that’s left for us.” 

They rode on in silence and regained the head 
of the line. The various wagons made camp at 
intervals sufficient to permit the remudas of dif¬ 
ferent outfits to be held on good grass at widely 
separate points to prevent the possibility of their 
mixing. On this occasion the men rode from one 
night camp to the next to renew old friendships, 
fraternizing with the hands who rode for rival 
brands. Another crew of similar magnitude had 
assembled at another point in the Strip and dur¬ 
ing this same hour these men too were mingling 
from one outfit to the next. Perhaps among the 
entire three hundred odd gathered at these two 
points there was not one man who fully realized 
that this meeting was to be the last of its sort; not 
one who could even partly vision the circum¬ 
stances of the next. 

Never again in history were these men to 
gather as a whole on the open range. This night 
was the last. Many would meet in the future; 
others would never meet again. Some would be 
neighbors for a lifetime and it was slated that 
the trails of others should cross in far places. 
Perhaps it is well that it is not given to man to 
look far into the future. This last occasion was 
not marred by any thought that the summons for 


Tumbleweeds 85 

the next gathering would not go forth for more 
than a quarter of a century. There were many 
present who would heed that plea which would 
one day be issued for all the old-time peelers and 
bronc fighters of the Cherokee lands to assemble 
for a final rally. They would not then travel 
across the open range with chuck wagons and 
saddle horse. Some would be carried in luxuri¬ 
ously appointed coaches that roared along steel 
rails; others in glittering vehicles that purred 
swiftly along fenced and well-kept highways; 
some would arrive in strange craft that swept 
across the skies above thriving western cities situ¬ 
ated on spots now widely known as ideal cow- 
camp sites. A few indeed, but very few, would 
come in buckboards or ride in on horses, their 
ropes coiled on ancient saddles; and it would be 
these latter ones who would then appear strange 
and out of place. But no such glimpse of future 
actualities troubled the men as they sought 
friends who worked with other wagons. There 
was a general disposition to scoff at the notion 
fhat there would be no more cows ranged on the 
Strip. Even if it were opened for entry it would 
be long before there were sufficient settlers to 
take up any great percentage of the range. The 
settlement of any country was a slow and tedious 
process. In any event there were long years of 


86 Tumbleweeds 

life in the open — the only sort of existence 
which they could endure with satisfaction — 
stretching forth ahead of them; so why concern 
themselves over vague possibilities of the future? 
That was the general attitude of them all, ex¬ 
cepting old Nate and his contemporaries, men 
who, like himself, were being ushered out of their 
domain as they had been ushered in a generation 
past. Their day was passing and they knew it. 

Throughout the following day various wagons 
turned aside to the right or left, branching away 
toward some far spot allotted to them, there to 
begin the first actual work. In the late after¬ 
noon the Half Diamond H wagon made its stand 
on a creek that flowed to the Cimarron from the 
low watershed between that stream and the North 
Fork of the Canadian. The cook’s summons 
brought the men tumbling from their bed rolls an 
hour before dawn. The night hawk hazed the 
remuda into a corral fashioned by a single rope 
stretched between stakes sledged solidly into the 
sod, and after breakfasting the men entered in 
pairs, each to rope a circle horse of his own par¬ 
ticular string. In the first light of day Younger 
led off up a ridge to the main divide flanking the 
creek to the left and turned upstream along it. 
Other reps had joined the wagon and there were 
now nearly twenty riders following where he led. 


Tumbleweeds 87 

At the head of each draw he detailed one or two 
men to work it. When half of the crew had been 
assigned to cover certain stretches Younger 
dropped again to the bottoms, mounted to the op¬ 
posite divide and moved downstream in a similar 
fashion until even with the wagon, working the 
last draw himself. 

The riders combed the scrub oak side hills and 
the gulches, shoving all stock before them to the 
bottoms and heading them upstream. The first 
riders to finish their details were stationed across 
the valley to halt the cows brought in by others. 
The chuck wagon had lumbered on up the creek 
to the point from which the next circle would be 
thrown. The night hawk had gone off duty with 
sunrise but the wrangler held the remuda in a 
rope corral. While a part of the men held the 
herd the others repaired to this enclosure and 
caught fresh horses, those who were to engage in 
the next gathering swing putting their ropes on 
circle mounts, while those detailed to bring up the 
day herd caught trained cow horses belonging to 
their individual strings. 

In a breeding-ranch country the herd would 
have been worked on the spot, calves roped and 
ironed with the brand worn by their mothers, and 
only the beef steers cut into a day herd, the she- 
stuff and all stock younger than two-year-olds 


88 Tumbleweeds 

being allowed to scatter once more on the range. 
But there were no calves to brand, no she-stock 
on the range, for of late the cowmen of the Strip 
had come to follow one set rule in accord with the 
transition of the cow business, forming an inter¬ 
mediate link between the old-time cattle kings of 
the open range and the modern feeders of the 
corn belt. For beef raising, instead of a one-out¬ 
fit business from start to finish, had come to be a 
business of progression induced by the necessities 
of later-day conditions. Big breeding ranches 
were now mainly confined to the vast wastes of 
Texas and the Southwest and to similar stretches 
in the ranges of the Northwest. 

The breeding ranches of Texas and New 
Mexico now gathered their steers as two-year- 
olds and sold them to the intermediate beef- 
brands operating in the Strip, the short-grass 
plains of Western Kansas and the Sandhill coun¬ 
try of Nebraska. Here they were ranged on 
grass till they had turned four-year-olds, then 
resold to the feeders of Missouri, Iowa and Illi¬ 
nois, who corn-fed and fattened and finished them 
for market. Except for one breeding ranch con¬ 
fined to a great fenced-in pasture, there was only 
beef stuff in the whole expanse of the Strip, which 
rendered the round-up a comparatively simple 
affair. This last event in particular was simpli- 


Tumbleweeds 89 

fied by the orders which had just gone forth from 
governmental sources, and every head of stock 
gathered in each circle was held in the day herd. 

The rope corral was dismantled, ropes and 
stakes loaded on the bed wagon which promptly 
headed up country, trailed by the wrangler with 
the remuda, and Carver led all the hands except 
those detailed with the day herd up the bottoms 
toward the new stand of the cook wagon. It was 
but ten o’clock when they dropped from their 
horses and fell ravenously upon a hot meal which 
the cook had already prepared, for while the cow¬ 
hand’s day begins an hour before dawn his noon¬ 
ing comes at ten and his knock-off time is seldom 
later than five P. M. 

The second circle of the day was completed in 
the late afternoon. The hands feasted to reple¬ 
tion and lolled about for an hour, buzzing angrily 
over a new rumor which had just reached camp. 
The men spread their bed rolls on the ground and 
retired with the setting sun. 

Carver dropped instantly asleep but contrary 
to his usual custom he waked within an hour and 
sleep would not come to him as he tossed rest¬ 
lessly in his blankets. The turmoil of the round¬ 
up, the hoarse bawls emanating from the throats 
of five hundred steers, the shrill yelps of riders, 
the stifling dust of daytime activities; all these 


90 Tumbleweeds 

had been superseded by the night sounds of the 
cow camp in the open. A cool breeze stole across 
the range which now seemed mysteriously hushed. 
Occasionally some night horse on picket or tied to 
the stake ropes shifted uneasily and stamped a 
restless foot. The night hawk held the cavayado 
on good grass somewhere down the bottoms and 
his voice drifted faintly to Carver as he sang to 
while away the lonely hours. The night guards 
on duty with the herd were likewise singing to 
soothe their charges on the bed ground a few hun¬ 
dred yards above the wagon, and fragmentary 
snatches of their melodies floated down to Car¬ 
ver’s ears as he blinked sleeplessly up at the stars. 
He remained awake till the hour came to stand 
his turn on second guard and he rolled out, 
mounted his night horse and rode with several 
others to relieve the weary riders who had stood 
the first shift of the night after a fourteen-hour 
day in the saddle. 

As Carver circled the bed ground his thoughts 
were still concerned with the text of the rumor 
so recently set afloat. It was said that not only 
cows, but men would be ordered from the un¬ 
owned lands; that every foot of fence must be 
removed from the range and brand owners forced 
to abandon home ranches. Bart Lassiter joined 
him. 


Tumbleweeds 91 

“ Well, what do you think of our latest bit of 
news? ” he asked. “ Think they’ll go through 
with it? ” 

“ It don’t seem reasonable that they’d put over 
any such drastic measure,” Carver said. “ They 
might. It will be hard on the old man if they 
do.” 

A figure rode toward him in the moonlight and 
the old man in question joined him as Lassiter 
departed. Nate too had been restless and had 
found himself unable to sleep. As Carver had re¬ 
flected that such a move would inflict an unde¬ 
served hardship upon his employer, so Nate was 
wondering as to what effect it would have upon 

his hands, for in common with all cowmen of his 

% 

type, Younger was proud of the accomplishments 
of his riders. 

Every brand owner would stand back of the 
men who rode for him; every rider evidenced a 
similar devotion to the owner’s interests, — a 
loyalty to the brand for which he worked. Per¬ 
haps in all history there has never been another 
calling which has inspired the same allegiance 
throughout its entire personnel. A man must be 
proficient in many lines to qualify as a cowhand. 
First of all he must be a horseman capable of 
mastering any horse on the range and of training 
his mounts to perform the various and intricate 


92 Tumbleweeds 

duties required of them; a roper of parts, able to 
front-foot a calf or to rope and hog-tie a mighty 
range bull with equal facility; sufficiently skilled 
in blacksmithing to shoe his own horses; for these 
and many other acquirements, working at them 
sixteen hours a day, he was paid a lesser sum than 
any unskilled laborer received for ten hours of 
far less gruelling work. It was the wild free life, 
not the pay, which held him to his chosen calling. 
The driving spring rains which soaked his bed roll 
as he slept on wet ground in the open; the shrivel¬ 
ling heat of summer and the shrieking blasts of 
winter blizzards; the congenial companionship of 
round-up days and the long lonely vigils at iso¬ 
lated winter line camps; all these he chose in 
preference to the softer life and greater pay of 
other less strenuous pursuits. 

“ What will all the boys be doing in another 
season? ” Younger asked. “ Where’ll they all go 
when there’s no more range work for them to 
do?” 

“ Texas maybe,” Carver predicted. “ Or New 
Mexico.” 

“ Both those countries are coming to be over¬ 
run with nesters,” Nate returned. “ The big 
brands are getting their range cut up right now. 
They’ve been forced to reduce the size of their 
outfits in proportion to the decrease in their 


Tumbleweeds 93 

range. There’s more cowhands down there now 
than there are jobs to go around.” 

“ Then maybe the Northwest range country,” 
Carver suggested. 

“ The surplus bronc peelers of Texas and New 
Mexico have been drifting up there for the last 
ten years,” Nate stated. “ They’re a drug on the 
market right now, cowhands are. And they’re 
irrigating that Northwest country rapid and cut¬ 
ting up the range. Once they settle the Strip, all 
the hoys down there will have to go into other 
lines. That’s sure.” 

The herd was worked and reworked almost 
daily as cows wearing brands that ranged in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the Strip were culled out and 
turned over to some wagon crew whose ultimate 
destination lay in that direction. All along a 
two-hundred-mile front more than a score of 
wagons were operating in unison. Owners rang¬ 
ing south of the Strip sent parties up to trail-herd 
back any of their stock that had wandered to 
these parts. These men brought with them little 
bunches of Half Diamond H cows and others 
that had drifted from the Strip to southern 
ranges. Some came from beyond the Canadian 
and at least one little assortment had been 
combed from the distant Washita. Younger, in 
common with other large owners of his neighbor- 


94 Tumbleweeds 

hood, maintained drift fences and line camps to 
prevent the drifting of his stock from the home 
range. Even with these precautions there was a 
certain annual leakage, but the percentage of 
Half Diamond H cows gathered south of the 
Cimarron was small. 

Day after day as the round-up progressed the 
men threshed out the fate of the unowned lands. 
It constituted the sole topic of discussion when¬ 
ever two riders met on the circle or paused to con¬ 
verse as they stood their turn on night guard. It 
filled that brief period of general indolence in 
which they indulged each evening before taking 
to their beds with the setting sun. Carver, per¬ 
haps to a greater extent than any of them, had an¬ 
ticipated certain transitions. He had correctly 
interpreted the presence of those white-topped 
wagons camped along the line and knew what 
they portended, yet even now he found it impos¬ 
sible to give credence to such drastic changes as 
were predicted by old Nate and others of his 
kind. He sought for an analogous example and 
found it in the settling process which Kansas had 
been undergoing for a period of forty years; yet 
throughout the whole western half of that State 
ranches of five to fifty thousand acres were the 
rule. In view of this circumstance he could not 
quite conceive of the vast expanse of the unowned 


Tumbleweeds 


95 

lands being cut up into quarter sections in the 
space of a few short years. It would all take 
time. He advanced this idea to Younger on a 
day some three weeks out from the ranch. 

“ All this talk about men being ordered out of 
the Strip,” he said. “ How are they going about 
that? I’ve seen the squatter outfits rolling up to 
the line and making camp. But we’ve had similar 
demonstrations before now; that year the boomers 
fired the grass for one; and nothing came of it. 
They were ordered out. Even if they let ’em in 
it will take years to settle up the Strip.” 

Younger nodded abstractly. Since that event 
had cost him a thousand head of cows it was but 
natural that the incident was still fresh in his 
mind. A few years past a swarm of squatters 
had invaded the unowned lands in the face of all 
regulations. When the cowmen had sought to 
expel them after they had refused to obey the 
government’s order to move out, the boomers had 
scattered and fired the parched fall grass and 
stock had died by thousands throughout the 
burned areas. The negro cavalry had been sent 
in to enforce the regulations and were thereafter 
stationed at Caldwell, patrolling the fine and 
turning back all insistent settlers who would 
enter. Now the Negro troopers had been with¬ 
drawn and a second invasion seemed imminent. 


Tumbleweeds 


96 

“ I know, son; but this time things will be re¬ 
served,” Nate prophesied. “ Then they ruled the 
squatters out and stood by us. This time they’ve 
ruled us out instead.” 

“ They’ll open it for entry,” Carver agreed. 
“ It’s come to that and it’s likely we can’t post¬ 
pone it. But this notion that the whole of the 
Cherokee country will be settled up solid in a few 
years’ time seems overdrawn.” 

“ A few months’ time, boy,” the old man cor¬ 
rected. “ More likely a few weeks will do the 
trick.” 

Carver’s thoughts reverted to a similar predic¬ 
tion made by Hinman, “ It’ll be one hair-raising, 
mad stampede,” old Joe had said. But Carver 
still dissented. 

“ It’ll take nearly fifty thousand families to 
file on every quarter section in the Strip,” he said. 
“ They’ll come eventually. I know that. But 
where will that many come from in a few weeks’ 
time? ” 

“ Son, they’ll come from every odd corner of 
the country,” Younger stated. “ They’ll swarm 
in and settle down in clouds like blackbirds in a 
cane field. She’ll be the damnedest, wildest 
scramble a man will ever live to witness. I’m 
telling you.” 


V 


The stockyards had been the scene of feverish 
activity for weeks. The loading pens were 
crowded to capacity and throughout every hour 
of the day and night there sounded the bawls of 
thirsty cattle and the shrill yelps of cowhands as 
they urged unwilling steers through the loading- 
chutes. Long trainloads of cows rolled out of 
Caldwell in swift succession and loading was re¬ 
sumed as soon as empty cattle cars could be ob¬ 
tained. An antiquated switch engine wheezed 
noisily as it shunted cars along the switches and 
spotted them at the chutes. Day by day the con¬ 
gestion increased. The quarantine belt swarmed 
with stock, as some two hundred thousand head 
had been gathered from the Cherokee lands for 
shipment. In addition to these the regular run 
of summer business from the south continued as 
the trail herds from Texas and New Mexico came 
plodding up to add to the congestion. 

Money flowed back into Caldwell in steady 
streams as trainloads of cattle were converted 
into cash on the Kansas City and Chicago mar¬ 
kets. Many owners, having been deprived of 


Tumbleweeds 


98 

their range by the stringent orders, found them¬ 
selves unable to reinvest in cows the funds re¬ 
ceived from recent shipments. In their restless¬ 
ness many of these turned to the green tables for 
relaxation and there were stud games where hun¬ 
dreds and often thousands were wagered on the 
turn of every card. All the cowhands of the 
Strip were banked up in the quarantine belt, 
holding the cows of their employers on grass until 
such time as they could be cleared and shipped. 
In their leisure hours they swarmed the streets of 
Caldwell. Added to these were the trail-herd 
crews from the whole Southwest, among them 
many Mexican peelers with their tremendous 
hats, silver-mounted saddles and three-inch silver 
rowels. 

Four troops of cavalry were camped along the 
line and troopers mingled with the crowds. Cald¬ 
well, the last of the old-time cow towns, had now 
entered upon her last wild fling. It was now 
definitely known that in three months’ time the 
Cherokee Strip would be thrown open for settle¬ 
ment and the homeless from all corners of the 
country were already beginning to assemble. 
For weeks on end there was not a room available 
in town and men spread their camp beds in vacant 
lots. Eating places were crowded to capacity 
and new restaurants were being opened up in 


Tumbleweeds 99 

frame shacks or even in tents wherever vacant 
sites were available. As always, where business 
is rushing and money freely flowing, there were 
symptoms of a boom. It was openly predicted 
that the settling of the country to the southward 
would throw Caldwell into the enviable position 
of the one logical metropolis of the whole South¬ 
west. 

Cowmen cursed the troopers, seeing in them 
the visible symbol of that authority which had ex¬ 
cluded them from their rightful domain. The 
unowned lands were thoroughly patrolled and 
detachments of cavalry were camped at strategic 
points throughout the Strip. It was this latter 
circumstance which had upset Carver’s calcula¬ 
tions. He had planned with Bart Lassiter to 
hold a bunch of six hundred of Younger’s three- 
year-old steers on the forbidden range for a 
period of one year, receiving a substantial pro¬ 
portion of the increased price which they would 
bring as four-year-olds. Both Carver and Nate 
Younger had seen the futility of the attempt* 
Others had entertained similar ideas but had 
abandoned them as events moved swiftly past the 
farthest bounds of their previous comprehension* 
and rendered their hopes untenable. 

Carver, once assured that his plans for the im¬ 
mediate future must be relinquished, cast about 


ioo Tumbleweeds 

for some substitute occupation which might prove 
equally remunerative. He rode away from 
Younger after their mutual decision, spinning 
his lone coin into the air and catching it as his 
horse jogged slowly across the range. 

“ It appears as if it’s going to be real difficult 
to provide you with all the company I’d counted 
on,” he said. “ Time is skipping right along and 
here you are — occupying my pocket all by your¬ 
self without even one mate to jingle up against. 
Only last week I had it all mapped out to gather 
in several thousand of your sort to keep you 
company. But that plan’s flown out the window 
and here I am without one idea to work on.” 

He turned along the south line fence of the 
Half Diamond H leases. 

“ Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a 
million,” he asserted. “ But we’ve got to insert 
our wedge somewheres right soon and ’start to 
mounting.” 

His eye traveled along the fence line to where 
it disappeared in the distance, and suddenly he 
turned and rode back to where the outfit was 
camped and sought out the boss. 

“ About those fences being ordered down,” he 
said. “ What arrangements have you made? ” 

‘‘Not any,” Nate admitted. “What with 
gathering eight thousand head of steers and ship- 



Tumbleweeds ioi 

ping ’em I haven’t taken time off to worry over 
fences. We’ll have the last steer headed north in 
a few days now. Then I’ll see about scrapping 
fences — or let the squatters tear ’em down when 
they come in to roost.” 

“ It won’t leave you short-handed now if Bart 
Lassiter and I lay off,” Carver suggested. “ You 
lend me a team'and wagon from the home place 
and we’ll snatch out those fences for what mate¬ 
rial there is in them.” 

“ The fence is yours,” Younger agreed. “ Pro¬ 
vided the other half-owners of any stretches are 
agreeable. Go get it.” 

Lassiter assented instantly when Carver stated 
the proposition. 

“ I always did feel suffocated in a fence coun¬ 
try,” he announced. “ I was always so much op¬ 
posed to seeing every fence go up that I figure it 
will be a real entertaining pastime to help tear 
’em down.” 

This spirit of optimism lasted during the two 
days required to hunt up other part owners of 
certain stretches and get their endorsement of 
the plan, his enthusiasm lasting through the first 
few days of actual work. They were out before 
sunrise and knocked off after dark, pulling posts, 
coiling wire and freighting the materials to the 
Half Diamond H home ranch. His interest 


102 Tumbleweeds 

lagged but he did not openly rebel until after 
two thirds of the fence had been salvaged. Car¬ 
ver roused him one morning for breakfast and 
Bart blinked sleepily at the smoky lantern that 
lighted the sod hut in which they had stayed over¬ 
night. 

“ We’ve got enough wire piled up to enclose 
the State of Texas,” he stated. “ There’s thirty 
miles of three-wire fence we’ve collected if there’s 
a foot. That’s twenty-nine miles more than both 
of us will ever need. Let’s leave the rest of her 
set.” 

“ But we contracted to scrap the whole of it,” 
Carver dissented. “ Another week will see us 
through.” 

“ A week! ” Lassiter moaned. “ I just can’t 
face it, honest. I’ve reformed. I hope I hang if 
I ever extract another staple.” 

“ A week’s not such a long stretch,” Carver 
urged. 

“ Donald, I’ll break down and cry if you lead 
me up to just one other measly fence post,” Las¬ 
siter announced. “ You take my half and let me 
off. I’ve got to amble over to Crowfoot’s and 
draw my spring’wages. Then, too, I’d ought 
to collect Molly and get her settled somewhere in 
Caldwell. , She’s all alone over on Turkey 
Creek.” 


Tumbleweeds 103 

“ I’ll pay you thirty dollars for what time 
you’ve put in — sometime when I’ve got it — and 
take over your wire and finish the job myself,” 
Carver at last conceded. “You can locate Molly 
in my little plant in Caldwell; only mark me 
now! There’ll be no more balancing of Cherokee 
rations conducted on the premises. I’ll remon¬ 
strate with you at some length if I catch you at 
it again.” 

Carver worked on alone and at the end of 
another ten days he viewed with satisfaction the 
numerous coils of fence wire and the great stack 
of posts neatly corded behind the deserted build¬ 
ings of the Half Diamond H. 

“ At present that assortment is only wood and 
iron,” he said. “ But it’s a real imposing pile 
nevertheless, and I can likely convert it into dol¬ 
lars when the squatters come romping in.” 

When he rode into Caldwell he was amazed at 
the swift transitions. The incoming transients 
had trebled the population in the last two months. 
Being unprepared for this sweeping change he 
was all the more prepared to lend a willing ear 
to the prediction that Caldwell was to become 
the metropolis of the whole Southwest. There 
was a conversational boom in progress and Car¬ 
ver, looking upon the crowded, teeming streets, 
the numerous tent houses eveiywhere in evidence 


Tumbleweeds 


104 

and the new frame shacks in the process of con¬ 
struction through the town, divined the possi¬ 
bility of actual boom days just ahead. He rode 
out to his little frame cabin to visit with Molly 
Lassiter whom he had seen but three times in as 
many months. He found neither Bart nor Molly 
at home but the door was unlocked and he en¬ 
tered. 

The two rooms of the bare little shack had been 
transformed. Two worn Navajo rugs were 
spread on the pine-board floor and soft curtain 
materials were draped across the windows. 

“ She’s made it all homelike,” Carver said. 
“ Just with a touch here and there. What 
couldn’t she do with things to work with and a 
real house to operate on? We’ll give her one 
some day if only she’ll agree.” He drew forth 
the lucky dollar and consulted it. “ Let’s you 
and me hatch out a new idea,” he invited. “We 
can’t be loafing on the job.” 

While the idea was hatching he sat peering 
abstractedly through the doorway, rousing from 
his reverie only when he found his gaze riveted 
on the girl as she turned into the pathway leading 
to the house. Molly halted suddenly when within 
a few feet of the door, as she saw him sitting just 
inside it. 

“ I hadn’t expected you this soon,” she said. 


Tumbleweeds 105 

“ Bart told me the fence job would keep you 
another month at least. Did you decide not to 
finish it? ” 

“ It’s salvaged to the last strand of wire,” he 
returned. “ I speeded up some so as to have it 
over with.” 

“ I’m sorry Bart quit,” she said. “ You see 
he won’t stick at anything.” 

“ Don’t know as I blame him,” said Carver. 
“ The last few days I’ve developed a downright 
aversion to the sight of fence wire myself. Glad 
to see me? ” 

“ Yes,” she said. “ I’ll be out of here and 
established in a room of my own so that you can 
have your house by to-morrow, Don. I’ve been 
waiting for the present occupants to vacate.” 

“ You stay right on here,” he insisted. “ I 
won’t he needing it.” 

“ Thanks, Don, but I can’t do that,” she said. 
“ I have to stop floating and find some nook of 
my own. T can’t follow Bart around any longer. 
For three years now we’ve drifted from one spot 
to the next; sometimes in line camps; more fre¬ 
quently in some rooming house in any town where 
we happened to be, always knowing that wher¬ 
ever it was it wouldn’t be home for long. I didn’t 
mind at first, for I was trying to keep Bart away 
from Milt and Noll; but they always turn up 


Tumbleweeds 


106 

\ 

IV' 

again and he follows them off. I’d love even a 
sod-house if only I could call it my own and know 
I wouldn’t have to move out on an hour’s notice. 
I’m sick of gypsying. I want to feel settled — 
feel that I’m attached! ” 

He reached over and rested a hand on her 
shoulder. 

“ I know, Honey,” he said. “ So do I. That’s 
exactly my own frame of mind. The best way all 
round is for you and me to get attached and 
settle. Won’t you? ” 

She felt that he had failed to grasp the fact of 
what a sense of permanency would mean to her 
after the nomadic existence she had followed for 
the past few years. 

“ Listen, Molly,” he said, divining something 
of her thoughts. “ It’s not the way a man says a 
thing but the way he means it that really counts. 
And I was meaning that a lot.” 

“ But you don’t even know to-day what you’re 
going to do to-morrow,” she said. “ It would be 
only exchanging one state of gypsying for .an¬ 
other. Don’t you see that? ” 

He did, at least, see that the moment was not 
right and he settled back into his chair and twisted 
a cigarette. 

“ You always lean to the dark side of things,” 
he accused. “ Most complaints I’ve heard about 


Tumbleweeds 


107 

family strife was occasioned because menfolks 
generally were so occupied with business that 
they didn’t spend much time at home. Now with 
me not having any special business it would leave 
me free to put in most of my time around the 
house. There’s that advantage.” 

“ Yes,” she laughed. “ There’s that. Some¬ 
times, Don, I almost wish you really were a set¬ 
tled sort of a soul; but that time will never be.” 

Carver crooned softly: 

“ Oh, I’m a rolling rambler,” 

Said the speeding tumbleweed. 

“ The prairies are my race track. 

The wild wind is my steed. 

“ I never cease my roaming; 

I’m always hard to catch. 

But the pumpkin stays forever 
In the same old garden patch. 

“ But I’d rather be a wild, wild weed 
Than a sluggish yellow squash: ” 

“ And I’d so much rather be a pumpkin 
than the wildest of all wild weeds, she said. 
“ There’s only that little difference between the 
two of us.” 

“ Tell me,” he urged, “ what sort of a quiet 
home life do you pine for most? Does your pref¬ 
erence run to a cottage in town or stray off 
towards a dwelling in the country? ” 


1 


108 Tumbleweeds 

“ The country,” she returned. “ Somewhere 
on a farm where I could watch things grow.” 

“ That’s my choice too,” he confessed. “ What¬ 
ever business I settle on will have to be at the 
source of things. Like you said, I want to watch 
things grow — calves or crops, it don’t much 
matter which. I’ll start casting about for a farm 
right off.” 

After leaving her he mingled with the swarm¬ 
ing crowds on the main street. The conversa¬ 
tional boom was in full swing and he heard it dis¬ 
cussed on all sides. There were but few who dis¬ 
sented from the general prediction that an era 
of great prosperity lay ahead for Caldwell. Car¬ 
ver put in three active hours, then sought out 
Nate Younger to draw his back wages for the 
spring work, a sum totalling a trifle less than two 
hundred dollars. 

He found Younger in his room at the hotel in 
conference with Joe Hinman. The two old cow¬ 
men had pooled resources and formed the Plains 
Land and Cattle Company, Younger having pur¬ 
chased grasslands adjoining Hinman’s holdings. 
They planned to make the new concern a beef 
ranch straight through instead of a breeding 
ranch as now operated by Hinman. 

“ We’ll be the biggest outfit in this end of the 
State,” Hinman was predicting, as Carver thrust 


Tumbleweeds 


109 

his head through the door. “ Come in, son, and 
set on the bed. The Plains Land and Cattle 
Company is going to be the biggest of the lot.” 

“ I’m counting some on organizing a similar 
concern myself,” said Carver. “ Maybe a trifle 
smaller than yours just at first; and in order to 
make the start I’ve got to borrow somewhat. I’m 
owning a nine-hundred-dollar equity in that 
hunch of calves we made the deal for last spring. 
How about your lending me eight hundred 
against it? ” 

“ But that would leave you owing me thirteen 
hundred on the bunch,” Hinman objected. 
“ And right now those calves wouldn’t fetch that 
price on the market.” 

“ Set the date for maturity of the loan far 
enough ahead so they’ll grow into it,” Carver 
suggested. “ Before it comes due they’ll have 
advanced way beyond that figure. Then if I 
don’t pay up you can close me out at a profit.” 

“ Now ain’t that a fact! ” Hinman exclaimed 
admiringly. “ There was a time, Buddy, when I 
marvelled at your ability to shed a season’s wages 
overnight. It does look now as if you might also 
learn me a few tricks on the reverse side of things. 
You’ve got a business mind.” 

He produced a check book and a stub of pencil. 


no Tumbleweeds 

“ How long do you want this loan to run? ” 
Carver asked. 

44 According to your own figures the longer it 
runs the more I stand to make,” said Hinman. 
44 So I don’t know as it makes much difference. 
It does appear as if you’d let me in on a pretty 
good thing — so set the date yourself.” 

44 One year from to-day,” Carver decided. 

44 What do you aim to do with all this money? ” 
Hinman inquired. 44 Setting out to break the 
bank in the Gilded Eagle? ” 

44 I’ve purchased a building,” Carver pro¬ 
claimed. 

44 You’ve which? ” said Hinman. 44 What 
building? ” 

44 Pirie’s place; down in the next block,” Car¬ 
ver informed. 44 It’s got a grocery business on 
the ground floor and the grocer’s wife rents room 
upstairs.” 

He extended a contract and Hinman perused 
it, observing that Carver had agreed to purchase 
at three thousand dollars, paying six hundred 
down and a like amount each year. 

44 I’d rented my little shack,” Carver ex¬ 
plained. 44 Only to find that there wasn’t a room 
for rent in town; not one! It was either buy a 
place of my own or set up.” 

44 It’ll save you considerable room rent,” Hin- 


Tumbleweeds ill 

man agreed, “ you being in town easy three nights 
out of the year. But what’s the final object? ” 

“ Each season those calves will be worth more 
and I can borrow enough additional against them 
to meet the payments,” Carver pointed out. 
“ Meantime the grocer pays me thirty dollars 
rent money every month, which gives me a steady 
income to live off till such time as I can turn the 
building at a profit and buy a tract of land to 
run those calves on.” 

“ I didn’t know your ambitions run toward 
owning land,” said Hinman. 

“ But now since I’ve come into so much surplus 
fence wire,” Carver explained, “ it looks like the 
only economical thing to do is to acquire a piece 
of land to set inside it.” 

“ Son, you’ve mapped out a self-operating bus¬ 
iness,” Nate Younger congratulated. “ All you 
have to do now is to stand back and watch it 
ripen. Meantime why don’t you read up on 
Belgian hares? ” 

He handed over the sum due for back wages 
and Carver studied the two checks reflectively. 

“ This surplus now,” he said. “ I was figuring 
to put into horses. They’ll almost give you 
horses nowadays just to come and drive them 
off. If you don’t mind my throwing a few head 
up on your range, I’ll buy up a little bunch and 


1 12 Tumbleweeds 

pay you fifty cents a head for pasture fees, agree¬ 
ing to get ’em off your grass November first.” 

“ We’d better let him put ’em on, Joe,” Nate 
agreed. “ It’s that much more security for that 
loan.” 

Even under favorable circumstances the horse 
market was poor and now with all those recently 
combed from the Strip as a surplus, horses could 
be purchased at one’s own price. For a week 
Carver rode early and late. The average run of 
Indian ponies were selling for less than five 
dollars a head but it was not this class of horse 
flesh which Carver sought. He selected young 
mares and geldings, ranging from eleven to 
twelve hundred pounds in weight, which would 
serve for light work stock, and eventually he 
drove fifty head well toward the northern ex¬ 
tremity of Hinmaivs range. They had cost him 
an average of ten dollars apiece and he had paid 
cash for half of them, issuing verbal promises to 
pay for the rest. He rode back into Caldwell 
with something over a hundred dollars in his 
pocket. 

The equipment of all the deserted ranches in 
the unowned lands was banked up in Caldwell. 
From the Coldstream Pool Carver purchased ten 
sets of harness at fifteen dollars a set and three 
heavy wagons at forty dollars each, paying his 


Tumbleweeds 113 

last hundred down and his personal note for the 
balance. 

Hinman witnessed this last transaction. 

“ Considering the size of your original stake 
you've stretched it to cover considerable territory 
in the last few months,” he said. 

“ It’s only my surplus I’m spreading out so 
thin,” Carver explained. “ My capital is still 
intact.” He exhibited his silver dollar. “ My 
one rule of life is never to impair my principal.” 

“ Fine,” Hinman encouraged. “ That’s con¬ 
servative business. I was satisfied you’d play it 
slow and safe.” 

“ Now if you’ll do me just one more little kind¬ 
ness I’ll be grateful; ” Carver said. “ You and 
Nate engage Freel in conversation up on the cor¬ 
ner where he’s standing and inside of five minutes 
I’ll saunter up and direct the course of the inter¬ 
view.” 

“ I’d like to hear it,” Hinman said. “ We’ll 
detain him.” 

Carver joined them before the appointed space 
of time had elapsed. 

“ Freel, I’ve been feeling real contrite about 
resisting arrest a few weeks back,” Carver said. 
“I’ve decided to surrender and stand trial.” 

The deputy marshal glanced apprehensively at 
the two old cowmen. 


114 Tumbleweeds 

“ Oh — that,” he said. “ Why, I’ve let that 
matter drop. That’s all closed.” 

“ And it was real accommodating of you to 
close it,” Carver returned, “ but I can’t stand by 
and see you get in trouble on my account. Or¬ 
ders are orders, and you had yours. That’s the 
reason I wrote this letter to Art Webb.” He 
tendered an unsealed letter to the deputy. Webb 
was Freehs chief, the head United States marshal 
of the district. “ Webb is a good friend of mine 
and I’m demanding that he inform me just why 
he sent an order down here to you to pick me up. 
That will put you in the clear for not rearresting 
me since that night I escaped.” 

Carver turned to his two friends. 

“ You’ve both known Webb for vears,” he said. 
“ Did you write him like I asked you? ” 

“ It clear slipped my mind,” Hinman apolo¬ 
gized. “ I’ll get it off this evening.” 

“ Mine goes on the same mail,” Nate con¬ 
curred. “ We’ll sift this thing right to the 
bottom layer and clear Freel of any possible 
blame.” 

“ Freel will be on my side himself if it comes 
to a showdown,” Carver asserted. “ He’ll be the 
first to testify that I’d been away from home for 
a solid month prior to the time that charge was 
lodged. Some one’s tried to deal me from the 


Tumbleweeds 115 

bottom, and between the four of us we’ll discover 
who it is.” 

Freel laughed and slapped Carver on the 
shoulder. 

“ Matter of fact, that inquiry was for another 
party, wanting to know if he’d turned up in these 
parts,” he said. “ I went and got the names 
mixed. The joke’s on me — likewise the drinks, 
and I’ll buy right now.” 

He slowly tore up the letter to Webb. 

“ And here I’ve been worried almost sick,” 
Carver said. “ It’s a big relief to have it all 
cleared up. I still owe you fifty on that little bet. 
Here’s an agreement to pay in ninety days, just 
as an evidence of good faith.” 

He handed Freel a folded paper and the mar¬ 
shal frowned as he read it. 

“ You’ll notice I stated why I owed it,” Car¬ 
ver amplified. “ You’ve always played square 
with the boys — and there’s maybe a half dozen 
that’s willing to step forth and declare how 
you’ve always met them halfway the same as you 
did with me.” 

During the next hour Carver accosted a 
dozen intimate acquaintances and told each in 
turn, quite confidentially, that there was a rumor 
afloat to the effect that Freel was about to resign 


n6 Tumbleweeds 

as deputy marshal and that Mattison was making 
application for the post. 

“By this time to-morrow every man in Cakb 
well will have commented on this matter to Matti¬ 
son and Freel,” Carver said to Hinman. “Not 
because they take any special interest in it but 
just to make conversation. But the principals, 
being only human and therefore self-centered, 
will decide that the whole town is breathless over 
their affairs. Mattison will feel his ambition 
mounting and Freel will suspect that there's been 
a fire kindled under him. Now if only you and 
Nate will put in your pull with Webb to give 
Mattison the appointment, it looks as if things 
would come out right.” 

He rented an extra saddlehorse and invited 
Molly to join him in an afternoon ride. They 
jogged out past the stockyards where cowhands 
prodded unwilling steers through the loading 
chutes, on beyond the sound of the wheezing 
switch engine and the rattle and smash of cars, 
then angled westward through the quarantine 
belt where riders guarded thousands of head of 
cows. In the gathering dusk they rode out on 
the point of a lofty knoll which afforded a view 
throughout a great expanse of country. 

“ Have a last look at all this, Molly girl,” 


Tumbleweeds 117 

Carver said, extending an arm to the south. 
“ There’s yesterday.” 

The green summer range stretched away to 
the far horizon with never a plow furrow to break 
it. Two trail herds had been bedded for the 
night at widely separate points. A third, whose 
trail boss had evidently made a hard day’s drive 
to reach the quarantine belt in hope of an earlier 
clearance and shipping date than that accorded 
to his slower fellows, passed below the two on the 
knoll and plodded northward. Two men rode the 
points, the right and left forw r ard extremities of 
the herd, guiding the foremost animals on the 
chosen course. One man skirted either flank and 
two others rode the “ drags ” in the rear of the 
herd to press forward any stragglers as the 
weary cattle drifted slowly toward the chuck 
wagon which was stationed a mile or more ahead 
and where the rest of the trail-herd crew had 
already gathered. 

“ That’s yesterday, girl,” Carver repeated. 
“ Remember all this as you see it now; the green 
range and the trail herds coming up from the 
south. Have a last look at it — for here comes 
to-morrow,” and he pointed off to the northward. 

Miles away across the quarantine belt a slender 
ragged line extended either way beyond the 
range of their vision. A thousand ribbons of 


n8 Tumbleweeds 

white smoke writhed aloft and glowed in pallid 
outline against the darkening sky. For two hun¬ 
dred miles along the line, wherever water was 
available, there was one continuous camp of 
squatters, and still the land seekers increased at 
the rate of two thousand families a week, all the 
landless of a mighty nation gathering here to 
participate in what would go down in history as 
the Cherokee Run, the most frenzied stampede of 
the century. 

Both watchers felt a sudden tightening of the 
throat as they gazed upon the scene, their feel¬ 
ings much the same but occasioned by different 
viewpoints. Carver’s sympathy was with the 
riders who handled the cows on the near side of 
that continuous camp, men who, like himself, had 
loved the old open range, the range that was 
passing for all time. The girl’s heart went out 
to those homeless hosts outside the line, for she 
herself was homeless and could understand the 
longing which had brought them to this spot to 
join in a mad and desperate rush on the chance 
that they might be among the fortunate locaters 
who should be first to drive their stakes on any 
scrap of ground which would constitute a home. 
Perhaps they too were tired of gypsying, she re¬ 
flected, and yearned for some one spot which they 
might call their own. 


i 


Tumbleweeds 119 

He pointed to the tiny scattering specks that 
were riders moving from point to point, then on 
beyond them to that stolid line. 

“ Yonder come the pumpkins to crowd out the 
tumbleweeds,” he said. 

The soft summer night shut down and trans¬ 
formed the pale smoke columns into a tortuous 
trail of twinkling fires which extended for two 
hundred miles along the line. 

“ We’d best be going now,” the girl said at 
last. “ There’s a fifteen-mile ride ahead. I’m 
glad you brought me here to see all this. It 
means one thing to you, Don, and exactly the 
opposite to me. But it’s something we won’t 
forget.” 

“ No,” he said. “ We’ll not forget.” 

They rode on in silence, the girl occupied with 
her thoughts of the homeless legions who would 
soon have homes, Carver content with the mere 
fact of her nearness. When he decided that this 
thoughtfulness had claimed her for too long a 
time he recounted his transactions of the past few 
days. 

“ About those responsibilities I promised you 
I’d acquire,” he said, “ I’m taking them on rapid. 
In addition to both residence and business prop¬ 
erty here in town, I’m owning a considerable 
number of horses and a hundred head of calves, 


1 


120 


Tumbleweeds 


not to mention harness, wagons and a few score 
miles of good barbed wire. I’m accumulating 
responsibilities so fast that there’s times I can’t 
be real sure whether they’re mine or some one’s 
else.” 


I 


VI 

A stray steer moved out of a coulee and 
bawled lustily for company. The animal trav¬ 
eled at a fast walk, occasionally breaking into an 
awkward trot but halting frequently to loose a 
plaintive bawl. 

“ He’s lonesome, that old fellow,” Carver sur¬ 
mised. “ And hunting hard for company.” 

As he watched the animal he speculated idly as 
to the probable number of stray steers scattered 
throughout the Strip. Always there was a cer¬ 
tain small percentage overlooked in the round¬ 
up, those feeding in choppy timbered breaks or 
bedded in scrub-oak tangles and missed by the 
circle riders who covered such stretches. These 
missing ones were caught in subsequent round¬ 
ups, so it mattered little. But on this occasion 
they could be charged off, Carver reflected, for 
there would be no future round-up. The owners 
could not afford to outfit parties to cover such a 
great stretch of country for what few were left, 
yet Carver estimated that there would be well 
over a hundred steers still ranging the rougher 
parts of the twelve thousand square miles of the 


122 Tumbleweeds 

unowned lands. He pulled up his horse and 
looked back at the bawling steer, then drew forth 
his silver dollar and addressed it. 

“ An idea just hit me,” he asserted. “ You 
and I don’t believe in taking chances. Conserva¬ 
tive, slow and safe, like Hinman said; that’s us 
every time. But we’re going to make one more 
little investment in tumbleweeds before we settle 
down.” 

A few hours later he went into conference with 
Nate Younger. 

“ If you’ll get most of the brand owners that 
operated in the western half of the Strip to sign 
an agreement whereby I get half the market 
price of any of their stray steers I bring into 
Caldwell I’ll outfit a combing party and go in 
after them,” Carver offered. 

“ They’d sign up quick enough,” Younger 

stated. Jump at the chance in fact. But if the 
owners themselves figure they can’t prorate the 
expense of a trip like that and come out ahead, 
how does it come you see a profit in footing all 
the expense for only half the proceeds? ” 

“ Just a whim of mine,” Carver answered. 

“ Another point you’re overlooking is the 
nature of a steer,” Younger protested. “ Once 
he gets lonesome he’ll bawl and travel and attach 
himself to the first trail herd that drifts through. 


Tumbleweeds 123 

Did you ever consider that little kink in the 
make-up of a steer? ” 

“ It was through studying over that very point 
that I acquired the notion,” Carver said. 

“ Oh,” said Younger. “ Yes, I see. All 
right, son, I’ll sign them up.” 

44 There’s the trail bosses of forty different 
Texas brands in town,” Carver continued. 
“ And there’s a dozen or so I’d like to sign up on 
the same basis. I’ll go out and interview them 
while you fix up the others.” 

44 But you won’t find any Texas strays in this 
end of the Strip,” Younger predicted. 44 A trail 
boss isn’t so much averse to letting an off-brand 
join his herd, but he’s dead set against letting one 
of his own steers desert it.” 

Carver knew that this rule was true. Trail- 
herds, traveling as they did through cattle- 
populated ranges, experienced a certain accre¬ 
tion of numbers through the joining of curious 
or lonesome cows and it was no infrequent thing 
for a drove to reach the shipping point a number 
of head stronger than on the start. The foremen 
of trail crews were supposed to use every effort 
to avoid such accretions and to work their herds 
at intervals and throw out any off-brands. Many, 
in order to save time and trouble, waited until 
reaching the quarantine belt before cutting their 


124 Tumbleweeds 

herds. The brand owners grazing in the un¬ 
owned lands had formed the Cherokee Strip 
Cattlemen’s Association, and this organization 
maintained brand inspectors at the Caldwell 
stockyards to guard against the possibility of 
any of its members’ cows being inadvertently 
shipped with droves that had been trail-herded 
through their ranges. 

“ No, the trail herds don’t usually drop many 
•of their own steers en route,” Carver agreed. 
“ It’s more apt to be reversed. But the rule 
holds good in Texas as well as in the Strip, so 
I’ll go out and sign up a dozen or so of them, 
even if the paper proves to be only a futile sort 
of a document in the end.” 

Some three weeks thereafter Carver rode with 
Bart Lassiter up a scrub-oak side hill. A little 
camp nestled in the draw below them where two 
other men rode herd on a dozen head of steers. 

“ It appears to me like you’d staked a losing 
venture,” Bart asserted, “ with three riders and 
a cook on your payroll and only a dozen steers in 
camp. We’ve covered this whole neighborhood 
thorough and yet you stay round. Why don’t we 
move to some more likely piece of country, say 
toward the head of the Cimarron? ” 

“ But it’s so much simpler to let all those 
strays have time to come down here and join us 


Tumbleweeds 125 

than by our rushing things and trying to ride 
that whole big country in search of them our¬ 
selves,” said Carver. 

They topped the ridge and Carver pulled up, 
his horse behind a scrub-oak thicket. A trail 
herd streamed down the far slope of the valley 
and was halted in a meadow that opened out in 
the timbered bottoms of Turkey Creek two miles 
above Crowfoot’s ranch, the one place in the 
Strip not yet deserted. Crowfoot, having beef 
contracts to fill, had been permitted to retain a 
number of steers on the Turkey Creek range 
with the understanding that the last of the ani¬ 
mals was to be slaughtered and the place vacated 
thirty days prior to the date scheduled for the 
entry of the Unowned Lands. 

“Just consider the amount of territory that 
herd has covered,” Carver commented. 

Bart recognized the herd as that of X I L with 
his two half-brothers in charge, and, as Carver 
had remarked, the drive had covered considerable 
territory. It suddenly occurred to Bart that the 
trail bosses whose signatures Carver had obtained 
were those representing Texas brands ranging 
south of the Washita or between that stream and 
the Canadian, the country through which the 
herd had passed. After entering the Strip it was 
not Milt’s custom to follow the regular trail-herd 


126 


Tumbleweeds 


routes but instead he drifted his charges slowly 
down the North Fork of the Canadian, then 
across to the Cimarron and down that stream. 

“ I expect strays have been joining them all 
along the line,” Carver observed. “ Now if 
they’d just happen to work the herd right here 
on Turkey Creek instead of waiting till they 
reach quarantine it would be right handy for us.” 

Bart turned and regarded him, the main pur¬ 
pose of Carver’s venture now quite clear to him. 
Milt would cut his herd here on Turkey Creek 
and Crowfoot, having still time for one last turn 
in inexpensive beef, would present him with ten 
dollars for every off-brand thrown out of the 
herd. Bronson, the owner of the X I L and 
whose trail herd was the medium for this traffic, 
probably received a like sum from Crowfoot. 

“ It’s been a nice safe occupation for a trail 
boss,” Bart said. “ He’s privileged to work his 
herd at any point he elects. It’s even considered 
the honorable thing to do if he’s willing to take 
the time. If by any chance some outside party 
gathers in the off-brands he’s throwed out of the 
herd, it’s no fault of his.” 

“ That’s why I’d decided to gather in those off- 
brands myself,” said Carver. “ See how simple 
it is? ” 

“ Oh, quite! ” said Bart. “ And also if I ride 


Tumbleweeds 127 

down with you on that errand it will create a rift 
in my family tree.” 

“You once remarked to me that your family 
relations had been strained before now but that 
the breach had later healed,” said Carver. “ This 
will likely leave a permanent scar, but I’ll pay 
you three dollars a head for all the off-brands we 
collect down there.” 

“ I value the esteem of Milt and Noll but I’m 
needing the money bad,” said Bart. “ Let’s you 
and me ride down.” 

“ Not right this minute,” Carver dissented. 
“ Let them finish working the herd. Then all 
we’ll have to do is to drive off our meat.” 

“ Or it’s just possible that we’ve mapped out 
quite a chore for ourselves,” said Bart. “ Milt 
is in charge down there. He’s easy to get along 
with, mostly, but deadly as hell when he ain’t. 
I’m wondering how he’ll take it.” 

“ Being a person of fair average brains, and 
not a haphazard homicide like Noll, he’ll take it 
easy,” Carver said. “ I’m armed with a permit 
from the military authorities to conduct my work 
in any part of the unowned lands. I represent 
half the brands that ranged in the Strip and hold 
a like authority from the trail bosses of a dozen 
Texas outfits.” 

He pointed to the work in progress in the hot- 


128 Tumbleweeds 

toms. Riders were stationed at intervals round 
the herd to hold it. Others entered and singled 
out off-brands and once a trained cow-horse had 
spotted the animal wanted by his rider, he fol¬ 
lowed doggedly, never losing his prey, and when 
near the edge of the herd he crowded it out with 
a sudden swift rush. 

“ They’re throwing them off up the bottoms,” 
Carver said. “ In a few hours we’ll get Brad¬ 
shaw and saunter down. After chatting with 
them for a spell we’ll mention that we’ve been 
sent in by the Cattlemen’s Association. Their 
hands are tied. 

This assumption proved correct and Milt Las¬ 
siter, silent as always, failed even to comment 
upon the matter when, some hours later, the 
three men casually made known their errand and 
rode off up the bottoms in search of strays. 
Three days later Carver reached the stockyards 
with a hundred and twelve head of steers that 
wore brands of owners whom he represented. 
The majority of these bore the insignia of Texas 
outfits but there were some forty steers wearing 
the mark of Strip owners, strays which had been 
run into the herd on its way down the Cimarron. 
He was cleared and given immediate shipping 
facilities, for the congestion of cows in the quar¬ 
antine belt had passed, only to be replaced by an 


Tumbleweeds 129 

even greater congestion of packed humanity just 
outside. 

Thirty thousand souls had come to swell the 
transient population of Caldwell. A like num¬ 
ber were camped along the line and Caldwell 
drew their trade. Day by day the jam in¬ 
creased. Incoming trains were packed and roads 
converging upon the town were filled with a solid 
procession of vehicles which bore families of 
hopeful homeseekers toward the edge of the un¬ 
owned lands. Caldwell, three months since a 
little cow town of but two thousand souls, was 
now doing business on the basis of a hundred 
thousand population. Property prices doubled 
overnight and still the swarm increased at the 
rate of a thousand a day. 

And beyond, across the dead line which held 
the mob back from its goal, the cause of all this 
tush and turmoil basked in peaceful serenity, 
twelve thousand square miles of it, untenanted 
by a single soul. The soldiers rode the line on 
all four sides of it to hold the over-anxious back; 
on the west there were troopers stationed at in¬ 
tervals of a mile the length of the Cherokee- 
Texas border, and on the south along the Okla¬ 
homa line. To the east the Arkansas River, 
separating the Strip from old Indian Territory, 
was similarly patrolled; yet with all these pre- 


130 Tumbleweeds 

cautions there were scores of sooners who had 
slipped through and secreted themselves inside. 
On the appointed day they would come forth 
from their retreat and drive their flag on some 
choice claim as the horde rushed in. 

Late summer droughts had claimed the coun¬ 
try and the range was parched and brown. Reg¬ 
istration booths were erected along the line in the 
glaring heat and as the day of entry approached 
there were long strings of men, some extending 
for upwards of half a mile, lined up to await their 
turn for registration. They camped in the line, 
sleeping where they had been standing when 
night shut down and the registration booths were 
closed, some reposing on bare ground, others in 
campbeds which they rolled and utilized as seats 
throughout the day, dragging them along as the 
line progressed. Wives and daughters carried 
meals to their menfolk and vendors plied the line 
to peddle food and drink. 

Every conceivable variety of business had 
opened up in Caldwell to cater to the ever- 
increasing throngs. It was the wildest of all 
frontier booms. Carver’s profit in stray steers 
had netted him something over eighteen hundred 
dollars. He disposed of his business building at 
a net profit of fifty-six hundred and sold out his 
three lots and little house on the outskirts of town 


Tumbleweeds 131 

for an even thousand. After clearing his in¬ 
debtedness on calves, horses and equipment he 
had something over sixty-three hundred left. He 
then entered into consultation with Younger and 
Joe Hinman. 

“ How much would you figure the best of the 
bottom land in the Strip will bring when it’s 
proved up? ” he asked. 

“Not much over eight or ten dollars at the 
first, maybe twelve an acre for the best of it,” 
Hinman estimated. 

“ But if I live a long life I’ll see every foot 
of it touch fifty,” said Carver. “ Don’t you 
think? ” 

“ And if you live a while longer than that 
you’ll see it top a hundred,” Hinman stated. 
“ It’ll take some time but it will get there. I’ve 
seen it repeated before now as a country settles 

up.” 

“ I’ve made my last bet on tumbleweeds,” said 
Carver. “ And I’d as soon start my pumpkin 
patch down there as anywheres. It would be 
right nice to have something over a thousand 
acres of good land down on Cabin Creek, the old 
site of the Half Diamond H.” 

“ It would,” said Younger. “ Only it can’t be 
done. A man can only file on a quarter section 
and he has to live there to prove up. Even if you 


Tumbleweeds 


132 

could buy his relinquishment you couldn’t live 
on but one place at once.” 

“ Last year when I went up to Kansas City in 
charge of a train-load of your steers a banker 
showed me a collection of scrip he’d made,” said 
Carver. “ It was Civil War Scrip, issued to 
veterans in lieu of pensions, or maybe on top of 
pensions, I don’t know which. Anyway, it en¬ 
titles the holder to lay that paper on any tract of 
government land and get a patent to it without 
having to live there and prove up. A number 
used it on small plots left open round where they 
lived and sold off the fractions left over for what¬ 
ever they could get. On and off in the last ten 
years this banker has accumulated such fractions 
to the amount of seventeen hundred acres. He 
intimated that he’d let them go for the price of 
the raw land. If he’ll sell for three dollars an 
acre he’s found a customer.” 

“ But the Strip won’t be opened for entry till 
a certain hour,” Hinman objected. “ And right 
then there’ll be three men for every claim turned 
loose across the line at once.” 

“ There’s thousands making the run that don’t 
consider proving up,” said Carver. “ They’ll re¬ 
linquish for whatever they can get. I can furnish 
them with scrip to get their patent and they can 
deed it right back to me.” 


Tumbleweeds 133 

Carver returned a week later, owner of scrip 
to the extent of nearly two thousand acres. As 
he stepped from the train he noted Bart and Noll 
Lassiter conversing, Bart grinning as usual while 
Noll’s face expressed black wrath. 

“Noll is a trifle upset over our turn in off- 
brand steers,” Bart told Carver as he joined him. 
“ He considers me a traitor and is deciding which 
of twenty different methods will be the most 
painful way to kill me. Says he’s no brother of 
mine, which it’s a relief for me to discover the 
fact, since I’ve always wished he wasn’t. He 
seemed real irate.” 

They turned to view a murky haze off to the 
south, a haze that changed to dense billowing 
black smoke as a hungry blaze licked across the 
parched prairies. Some thought the soldiers had 
fired the grass to drive out the sooners that 
skulked in hiding in the Strip. Others averred 
that the cowmen, remembering that time when 
the boomers had fired the range, had waited till 
this time to retaliate, a few days before the set¬ 
tlers were to take over their old domain. What¬ 
ever its source, the fact remained that in the space 
of two days there were hundreds of square miles 
of the unowned lands transformed into a black 
and devastated waste. 


VII 


Soldiers sat their horses at half-mile inter¬ 
vals, awaiting the appointed hour to give the 
signal for the home seekers to cross the line. 

Molly Lassiter’s eyes snapped excitedly as she 
viewed the scene, a spectacle which has never 
been duplicated in all history. More than a hun¬ 
dred and fifty thousand souls were banked up 
behind the Cherokee-Kansas line and a thinner 
wave had assembled on the Oklahoma side, where 
the barrier would be lowered at the same hour as 
that along the northern edge. 

“ And six months ago I was thinking it would 
take years to settle it,” Carver said. “ There’s 
twelve thousand square miles in the unowned 
lands — and within four hours from the time the 
pistol cracks she’ll be settled solid; every foot of 
ground staked and tenanted, right down to the 
last odd scrap.” 

Bart Lassiter joined them as they rode along 
behind the line. Every sort of conveyance the 
West has ever seen was represented. Hundreds 
of canvas-covered wagons were stationed along 
the front ranks of the mob, their owners having 



Tumbleweeds 135 

camped there for days, in frequent instances for 
months, to make certain of holding a place in the 
forefront of the run. Buckboards and lumbering 
farm wagons, top buggies and family carriages, 
shining runabouts, with here and there a racing 
cart, the slender, high-strung horse between the 
shafts fretting restlessly for the start. Saddle 
horses of every conceivable size and color. Scores 
of Kentucky thoroughbreds had been shipped in 
to make the run and even now, two hours before 
the start, their riders were maneuvering for 
favorable positions as formerly they had jockied 
at the wire. 

Individuals reacted differently to the strain of 
waiting. Some genial souls called encourage¬ 
ment to others and optimistically predicted that 
there would be claims for all as they motioned 
some anxious newcomer in the rear to some gap 
nearer the front. Others glared suspiciously at 
all about them and resented every shift of their 
neighbors lest the movement provide space for 
another hopeful soul. Many men seemed anxious 
and careworn. Most of these had families and 
the next few hours would mean much to them, 
their every hope based upon staking out a claim. 
Some feverishly discussed their chances while 
others were quite stolid; many were boastful, 
announcing for the benefit of all within earshot 


136 Tumbleweeds 

that they knew exactly the best piece of ground 
in the Strip and would beat all others to the spot. 
One woman called out hysterically to a friend 
some yards away as the three riders passed be¬ 
hind her, 

“ Have your man stake the claim next to 
ourn,” she screeched. “ Then we can neighbor 
back and forth. Watch now and pull right in 
behind us,” she urged, as if the start were but two 
seconds off instead of as many hours. “ Don’t 
let any one wedge in between.” 

There were already a half-dozen vehicles in 
between and their occupants fidgeted irritably 
under the constant scourge of her insistent 
screech. 

One ample soul fanned her infant while an¬ 
swering the questions showered upon her by the 
rest of her brood, smiling meanwhile at all who 
caught her eye and occasionally dropping a word 
of good cheer to the tall lean man who occupied 
the seat beside her, his eyes roving moodily off 
across the burned and blackened area of the 
promised land. A meek little woman near by 
cried quietly while her man awkwardly sought to 
dissuade her, speaking gruffly in his concern over 
this unforeseen situation. 

“ Close up it sounds like a flock of chattering 
magpies,” said Carver. “ And from a distance 


Tumbleweeds 137 

it sounds like the everlasting blat of a band of 
sheep. Whatever do you suppose brought all 
this swarm together? ” 

“ The need that every human feels,” Molly 
answered. “ The urge to have a home.” 

She had pulled up her horse and Carver, fol¬ 
lowing the direction of her gaze, saw an old 
couple on the seat of a wagon on the very front 
of the line. The man’s beard was white and a 
ragged fringe of white hair showed beneath his 
battered hat; one of the pioneers who had helped 
hew out homes in the West for others but who 
had neglected to retain one for himself. For a 
year old Judd Armstrong had been camped at 
various points along the line and Caldwell had 
come to know him. The little old lady beside him 
was hatless, her hair drawn tightly back from her 
brows and twisted in a scanty knot behind, the 
blistering sun falling full upon her wrinkled, 
weather-beaten face. She gazed serenely forth 
upon the restless horde of humanity around her, 
undisturbed by the nearness of the hour which 
would determine whether at last she should have 
a home after having been deprived of one for all 
these many years. Life had handed her many 
reverses but she had faced them all with that 
same serenity, confident that old Judd would see 
her through. 


138 Tumbleweeds 

“ Is there any chance for them? ” the girl 
anxiously inquired.” 

Carver shook his head doubtfully as he studied 
the two patient, bony horses that were destined 
to carry the ancient couple into the wild scramble 
of the most desperate stampede of the century. 

“ Not much, I’m fearing,” he returned. “ This 
will be one awful tangle, with every man for him¬ 
self. Poor old souls; they oughtn’t to go into it 
with that worn-out team.” 

He turned to Molly and she was looking up at 
him, in her eyes that same expression which, at 
that first meeting, had impressed him with the 
thought that she was in grave need of something. 

“ Don’t look at me like that, Honey,” he said. 
“ Not with folks looking on. I might lose my 
head and forget there was any one around. 
Maybe they’ll find a scrap of ground that the 
rest have run over without noticing. We’ll hope 
it transpires that way, won’t we?” 

She nodded without speaking and they rode 
on down the line. A little knot of horsemen ap¬ 
peared some distance out across the blackened 
landscape, their progress marked by puffs of fine 
black ashes and tossed aloft by their horses’ 
hoofs. 

“ Cavalry patrol bringing out some sooner 
they’ve picked up,” Carver stated, as he watched 


Tumbleweeds 139 

the group approach. “ There’s likely two hun¬ 
dred odd hiding out down there to take their pick 
of the claims when the run sets in.” 

All through the preceding night there had 
been irregular spurts of rifle shots at various 
points along the line as troopers opened up on 
sooners that had watched their chance to slip 
through the cordon of guards and make a run 
for it. 

“ Did you hear the shooting last night? ” she 
asked, and Carver nodded. 

“ Tumbleweeds drifting through,” he said. 
“ Most of them urged on just for the love of 
taking chances — others on the chance of making 
a few dollars by selling out.” 

“ Are there many like that? ” she asked. “ I 
mean ones who are doing it for the sake of a few r 
dollars instead of with the idea of living on their 
claims.” 

“ Thousands,” Carver testified. “ Every 
puncher that ever rode in the Strip will stake a 
claim and there’s not one out of ten that would 
live on the place a.week. Most of them are going 
in for the sport of making the run.” 

“ And they’ll stake the best tracts,” she said. 

“ They will,” Carver agreed. “ They knovr 
the country and are equipped to get there first. 
But there’s such a scattering few compared to 


140 Tumbleweeds 

the size of the country that their filings all com¬ 
bined won’t make a pin-prick on the map.” 

“ And where will you file? ” she inquired. 

“ The Half Diamond H,” he said. “ That’s 
my destination. Every ranch down there stands 
just as she was left when the cowmen vacated the 
Strip. Owners are privileged to move their im¬ 
provements off but they’re mostly sod buildings. 
The parties filiqg on them will be saved the trou¬ 
ble and expense of erecting new sod huts. 

“ But there’s a frame house on the Half Dia¬ 
mond H,” she said. 

“ Four rooms — the only one in this end of the 
Strip,” he returned. “ Old Nate said he couldn’t 
move it off with any profit and that whoever 
staked it wouldn’t likely offer any sum to speak 
of, so it was mine if only I’d stake the place 
myself.” 

“But won’t all the boys that used to ride that 
country be heading for that same spot? ” she 
asked. 

“ The old home-ranch sites will be the plums,” 
he admitted. “ They’re located in good country 
and all the peelers will line out for them. If one 
of the boys beats me to it, I’ll give him a hundred 
to move on and stake the next. The Half 
Diamond H sets in twenty sections of rich bot¬ 
tom land in the Cabin Creek valley. There’ll 



Tumbleweeds 141 

likely be thirty or more old friends of mine head 
right into that bottom to file, and I can buy the 
big part of them out. They’ll sell to the first 
man who appears and puts in a bid. That will 
be me.” 

“ You’ve found one customer now,” Bart an¬ 
nounced. “ You can buy me out cheap.” 

“ Pick your places in the line and hold them,” 
Molly urged. “ You’ll have a bad start other¬ 
wise.” 

“ Plenty of time,” Carver said. “ We couldn’t 
get into the front rank or anywhere near it, so 
I’d as soon start from behind. A fifty-yard 
handicap won’t matter much in a long pull. 
Those thoroughbreds will stretch out in the lead 
for the first couple of miles and give their riders 
a chance to stake, but they wouldn’t last on a 
long hard drag. One of them would run my 
horse off his feet in the first three miles and mine 
would kill him off in the next ten or twelve. You 
notice the boys aren’t much concerned over 
places,” and he motioned toward an irregular 
string of riders well back of the congested throng 
banked up along the Cherokee-Kansas line. 

All the old-time cowhands of the Strip were 
prowling here and there, inspecting those who 
were so soon to swarm in and take over their old 
stamping ground. 


142 Tumbleweeds 

The crowd tightened as the hour approached, 
squeezing a few feet toward the front as if every 
inch in the direction of their goal would count for 
much in the final frenzied spurt of the get-away. 
Carver looked at his watch and snapped it shut. 

“ Five minutes,” he announced. “ You follow 
along to the Half Diamond H if you lose us, 
Molly. I’ve got a food cache there.” 

They pulled up their horses, having returned 
to the point of their original stand. Judd Arm¬ 
strong seemed never to have shifted in his seat 
and the emaciated horses drooped contentedly, 
unmindful of the sudden tenseness that gripped 
all those around. The more high-strung horses 
sensed it and fidgeted nervously. The ample 
soul still mothered her infant and smiled while 
her man sat as stolidly as before, gazing somberly 
out across the blackened waste that stretched out 
ahead. The troopers had ceased patrolling the 
line and now sat their horses at half-mile inter¬ 
vals and faced the eager horde they had held in 
check for so long a time. The hysterical lady cut 
short a screech of advice to her neighbor four rigs 
away as the strains of a bugle sounded faintly 
from afar, penetrating the buzz of conversation 
and silencing it. A second note, far to the west¬ 
ward, joined the first and in a space of two sec¬ 
onds the clear ringing strains of the bugles 


Tumbleweeds 


143 

pealed the same message along a front of two 
hundred miles. 

There was a sudden tense hush, the troopers 
sitting rigidly in their saddles. As the last notes 
died away each soldier fired a single shot, and 
with a tremendous sullen roar the most spectacu¬ 
lar run of all time was off to a running start. 


VIII 


A slender thoroughbred leaped forward with 
the shots, his rider crouched low along his neck. 
Carver had a brief glimpse of hundreds of saddle 
horses fanning ahead of the main bulk of the 
stampede. Then his view was cut off by the 
dense fog of black ashes churned aloft. 

“ Look! ” he exclaimed. 

In either direction, as far as the eye could 
reach this murky cloud was sweeping forward. 
As it eddied and curled he could catch glimpses 
of the swaying gray tops of covered wagons and 
the glittering flash of newly painted runabouts. 
It seemed that a black cyclone belt a hundred 
yards in width had sucked up thousands of 
strange land craft and churned them across the 
prairies over an endless front. 

Men shouted frenzied encouragement to their 
horses, their voices lifting above the rattle 
of the laboring vehicles. Not infrequently there 
sounded a splintering crash as some outfit was 
piled up in a wreck or the sudden smash and sub¬ 
sequent groaning screech which announced that 
two rival wagons had collided and locked hubs. 


Tumbleweeds 145 

A shrill cowboy yelp of exultation rose high 
above the uproar. 

“Now we can break through,” Carver stated, 
and they urged their horses into a lope and 
passed the wagons that lagged behind, darting 
past others as opportunity offered. 

The girl saw humanity in the raw, the bars of 
convention lowered by excitement and each 
man’s true nature standing forth undisguised. 
She was treated to kaleidoscopic flashes of hu¬ 
man avarice and sublime generosity. A heavy 
wagon came to grief as its owner lashed his horses 
over the four-foot bank of a dry wash. The 
tongue was stabbed into the earth, buckled and 
snapped, piling the outfit up in a tangled heap in 
the bottom of the dry gulch. A man in a light 
rig cheered the accident as he made a safe crossing 
of the wash at a point some few feet away where 
the banks were less precipitate, shrieking a de¬ 
risive farewell to the unfortunates as he passed. 
A chap-clad rider set his horse back on its 
haunches and dismounted. 

“ Crawl him, stranger,” he invited. “ Give 
that pony his head and he’ll take you where 
you’re aiming for. I’ll help the woman straighten 
out this tangle.” 

The man boarded the horse and darted off, 


146 Tumbleweeds 

leaving the cowboy to care for his wife and chil¬ 
dren and the struggling team. 

Just beyond the wreck a man had leaped from 
a wagon to plant his flag while his wife held the 
horses. A single man had unloaded from a 
runabout with similar intent and as the girl 
passed them the two were fighting savagely, en¬ 
deavoring through the medium of physical com¬ 
bat to settle the question as to which one had first 
placed foot upon the ground. While the wife 
and family of the one gazed upon the scene from 
the wagon, the horse of the other was running 
away with the runabout which was lurching peril¬ 
ously across the dips and sways of the prairie. 

They passed old Judd Armstrong, his bony 
horses surging on at an awkward gallop. The 
little old lady gripped a staff topped by a white 
scrap of cloth with which she intended to flag the 
first scrap of ground they crossed where she 
could see no others out ahead. But always there 
was a swarm of scurrying shapes far out in the 
lead. 

Just as Carver pulled out ahead of the last 
fringe of wheeled conveyances the girl heard 
again the shrill exultant cowboy yelp and saw the 
man riding just ahead of them. He was a big 
fellow with a week-old growth of beard, mounted 
on a rangy bay horse that wore a Texas brand. 


Tumbleweeds 


147 

He had given the animal its head and was half- 
turned in the saddle, looking back at the sea of 
lurching, swaying vehicles. His mouth was ex¬ 
tended in a grin and he waved his gun aloft. 

“ Charge! ” he bellowed. “Charge! ” 

He emptied his gun in the air and waved them 
on as if he were leading the line into some des¬ 
perate affray. He bawled facetious commands 
to all within earshot. His noisy clamor reminded 
the girl of Noll, and she hated the big Texan 
from the instant her mind conceived this fancied 
resemblance. She herself read the pathos that 
was written in every movement of the mad 
scramble, the hungry rush of the homeless; and 
she told herself that the noisy horseman viewed it 
in the light of a screaming comedy. 

A wave of ground cut off her view toward the 
east, but as the slight crest flattened to merge 
gradually with the surrounding prairie the ob¬ 
jects on the far side reappeared, at first merely 
the heads and shoulders of those who traveled a 
parallel course, then their bodies, then the mounts 
that carried them. One form seemed to progress 
smoothly but there was a queer crouch to the 
head and shoulders. As more of him rose into 
her level of vision, she saw that he rode an anti¬ 
quated bicycle with one huge wheel in front and 
a tiny one trailing in its wake. The man was 


148 Tumbleweeds 

hunched over the handle bars and was pedalling* 
desperately, a grotesque figure with coattails 
streaming out behind, a water bottle slung across 
his back with the shaft of a small flag thrust 
through the strap. 

“ Oh, Don! Bart! Do look,” Molly implored. 
She was laughing in sheer delight yet she was 
conscious of a swift, hot resentment when the 
big Texan raised his voice in a joyous whoop as 
he sighted the strange apparition and gave chase. 
He veered his mount to the left, unbuckling his 
rope strap, and as the animal stretched into a full 
run behind the speeding cyclist he shook out a 
few coils of his rope and whirled his loop aloft. 
He did not make his throw but contented himself 
with giving voice to a wild yelp with every jump 
of his horse. His victim turned to cast an ap¬ 
prehensive glance over his shoulder and the front 
wheel collided with a dog mound and threw him. 
Even in the act of rising he thrust his flag into 
the ground and staked his claim, the big fellow 
cheering him as he passed. 

Hundreds of riders were scattered out in the 
lead of the line of oncoming vehicles that was 
strung out as far as the girl could see toward the 
east and west. Whenever one horseman attained 
the lead in his own particular section of the field 
he flung from the saddle and planted his flag. 


Tumbleweeds 149 

Scattered at intervals through it all Molly could 
make out moving specks of color — bright reds 
and purples, brilliant orange and softer effects 
of lavender — and she knew these for the gaudy 
regalia of the cowboys. These were not dis¬ 
mounting but riding steadily ahead, each with 
some particular destination in mind, saving their 
horses for the last wild spurt. Little by little the 
field thinned out. Some few of the cowmen had 
dashed suddenly ahead to stake their claims in 
some of the better valleys but the majority of 
them were still holding on. They swept down 
into a wide brown valley untouched by the fire 
and three times during the crossing of it Molly 
saw riders dismount far ahead — too far; and 
she knew that these were sooners who had been 
hiding in the unowned lands and who had now 
put in an appearance as the peak of the run came 
in sight. 

The Texan had lost ground in his chase of the 
cyclist but eventually Molly heard him off to the 
right and rear, his big voice raised in a song 
which she thought fitted him exactly. 

“I’m a wild, wild rider 
And an awful mean fighter, 

I’m a rough, tough, callous son-of-a-gun. 

I murder some folks quick 
And I kill off others slow, 

That’s the only way I ever take my fun. 




150 


Tumbleweeds 


“ I’m a devil with my quirt, 

A terror with my knife, 

A fearsome fiend when out for pistol practice, 
I wield a wicked spur. 

Twirl a nasty ten-foot loop 

And curry out my red mane with a cactus.” 


When they had covered some ten miles Molly 
noted that the brilliant specks were forging 
steadily forward through the scattered ranks of 
their more somberly clad fellows and gradually 
attaining the very fore fringe of the run. An¬ 
other two miles and the bright dots were out in 
the lead and it was apparent that many were con¬ 
verging upon the line which Carver followed 
toward a distant dip in the landscape. Every 
cowhand was up on a horse that had proved its 
speed and endurance in many a hard round-up 
circle. The clatter and crash of vehicles had died 
out behind. Carver glanced both ways along the 
line. 

The boys are drawing in toward the Cabin 
Creek bottoms,” he called to Molly. “ Best land 
in the Strip. There’ll be many a friend of mine 
in the lot. Here’s hoping they stake near the old 
home ranch.” 

He glanced along the scattered line again as 
they rode across a low wave of the prarie and the 
broad bottoms of Cabin Creek opened out below 


Tumbleweeds 151 

them, spared by the fire and carpeted with grass 
that was only now turning brown. 

“ Now! ” he said. “ Run for it! ” and they let 
their horses out and raced down the gentle pitch. 

Carver kept his eye on the low point of a ridge 
that thrust its nose into the edge of the valley 
three miles below. Just beyond that shoulder 
the Curl Fork of Cabin Creek joined in and the 
buildings of the Half Diamond H nestled under 
the hill. Below that point the bottoms widened 
out to twice the width of the part they now 
traversed. More than thirty riders were strung 
out across the level floor of the valley, careening 
down both sides of the creek. 

1 

Some dropped from the saddle and drove their 
flags, but a dozen or more on Carver’s side of the 
creek held straight on. This last spurt was a con¬ 
test between seasoned riders and tried horses. 
Carver urged his mount and the animal drew on 
his last reserve of speed. Molly felt the smooth 
play of powerful muscle sweeping her on toward 
the goal as her own horse, fresher from having 
carried less weight over the long miles, ran nose 
to nose with Carver’s. Bart was twenty feet to 
their left and as far in the rear. 

As they thundered down upon a tiny spring- 
creek flowing on the near side of the shoulder 
Carver waved a hand. 


152 Tumbleweeds 

“ Up there! ” he shouted to Bart. “ Flag it! ” 

Bart whirled up the course of the spring-creek 
and the girl wheeled her horse to follow him while 
Carver held the straight course for the low jut¬ 
ting point. As Bart and Molly turned aside, the 
big Texan dropped from his horse a hundred 
yards down the little stream and planted his flag. 

A dozen riders were almost abreast of Carver 
as he rounded the point and flung from his saddle 
in the ranch yard of the Half Diamond H. He 
had staked the old home ranch. 

He turned to watch the rest flash past and 
recognized a big paint horse as a circle mount of 
Bradshaw’s string. The group that had clung 
so persistently instead of staking farther up the 
valley was composed of old friends to a man. He 
picked them one by one as they fanned out 
through the widening bottoms and staked them 
from the creek to the valley slope for two solid 
miles below the Half Diamond H. 

“Box T riders or former Half Diamond 
hands,” he said. “ Every man. I needn’t have 
put on such a strenuous last spurt if I’d only 
looked back to see who made up the bunch that 
was crowding me so hard on the final lap. I see 
old Joe Hinman’s hand in this.” 

He turned at a sound behind him. A man 


Tumbleweeds 153 

stood calmly by a lathered horse some thirty 
yards back among the sod outbuildings. 

“ You’ll have to get off,” the stranger an¬ 
nounced. “ This is my ground. I staked it 
first.” 

Carver stared for a brief space, unable to 
grasp the fact that another had rounded the 
point ahead of him. He certainly had not ar¬ 
rived since Carver reached the spot so he must 
have been there first. Then Carver’s compre¬ 
hension cleared and he led his horse back toward 
the other. 

“ Looks like you had beat me here for a fact,” 
he said. 

“ By three minutes,” the stranger stated. 

Carver glanced at the man’s horse. The ani¬ 
mal’s shoulders and flanks were lathered white, 
as if from a long hard run, but its breathing was 
smooth and regular and its sides were steady. 
He glanced at his own mount with its heaving 
flanks; listened to the animal’s heavy labored 
breathing. 

“ Beat you by three minutes,” the stranger 
reasserted. 

Carver touched the lathered horse with one 
forefinger, carried the member to his mouth, then 
spat the soapsuds out. 

“ Yes, you beat me by three days,” he said. 


154 Tumbleweeds 

“ Which is just a shade too broad a margin. 
Now you step up into the middle of that pony, 
and start working up a real sweat on him while 
you’re getting away from here.” 

The sooner faced him defiantly, a black scowl 
on his countenance, but he read the same purpose 
in Carver’s eyes that Freel had discovered in 
them on the day the marshal had offered to make 
Molly Lassiter respectable. 

“ I’ll sell out for five hundred,” he offered. 

“ In less than that many seconds you’ll be 
headed for some place where money can’t follow 
you,” Carver returned evenly. “You climb that 
horse and amble.” 

The sooner swung to the saddle and rode off 
toward the eastern slope of the valley. It would 
have availed him little to head down country, for 
already the bottoms were filled with riders. 
Those left behind in the last mad dash for the 
Half Diamond H were now pouring through in 
hundreds. The side hills that flanked the west¬ 
ern edge of the valley were being staked and 
other riders streamed along their crests. 

When Carver looked again he saw that the 
sooner had planted his flag a half-mile up the 
little spring-creek that trickled past the doors of 
the ranch house and on down to the parent 
stream, a mate for the one that flowed on the far 


Tumbleweeds 


155 

side of the ridge where he had sent Bart Lassiter. 
The sooner’s present holding would be just 
across the ridge from Bart. But Carver was not 
concerned over the future actions of the man. If 
he succeeded in holding a piece of ground which 
should have gone to some legitimate stampeder 
it was no affair of his, Carver reflected, and dis¬ 
missed it from his mind. For thirty minutes the 
home seekers continued to pour through in 
gradually diminishing numbers. Most of the 
wheeled conveyances had dropped out, their 
owners either having won their goal at some 
point farther back or given up the race, but a few 
buckboards rattled past in the wake of the last 
straggling horseman. 

Then Carver turned to the work in hand. 
Those in his immediate vicinity who had made 
the run for the purpose of realizing a quick turn 
on their relinquishments were the ones he sought. 
The cowhands were the logical parties to inter¬ 
view. 

Bradshaw was sprawled comfortably on the 
ground on the next quarter section below. 

“ Old Joe is responsible for this,” Carver said, 
as he rode down toward his friend. “ He sorted 
out the Box T boys that were going to make a 
filing just to sell it, and such of the old Half 
Diamond H boys as he could locate. This way 


Tumbleweeds 


156 

it helps us all. They find me a ready buyer and 
I find them ready sellers, roosting on the very 
ground I want. Then, too, Joe was thinking of 
old Nate. Younger lived here for twenty years. 
With me on the Half Diamond H he can come 
down and find at least a part of it the same.” 

Bradshaw grinned as Carver neared him. 

“ What’s your offer? ” he demanded. “ Speak 
in big figures now or I’ll stay here and farm this 
piece myself. Joe tipped us off to swarm in and 
settle in a flock just below Nate’s old home ranch. 
Well, what do you bid? ” 

“ Two hundred and fifty,” Carver stated. 

“Too much — but I’ll take it,” said Brad¬ 
shaw. “ Give me a commission and I’ll buy the 
others out for you anywheres from fifty to a 
hundred.” 

“Two hundred and fifty is my flat price to 
every man,” said Carver. “ That’s a good fair 
figure for both sides. They’ll have to take my 
notes for it, dated eighteen months ahead at six 
per cent. They can either wait and live off the 
interest meantime or discount them at the bank 
— provided they can locate a banker who’s op¬ 
timistic enough to make an investment in my 
paper.” 

“I’ll ride along with you to see the others,” 
Bradshaw volunteered. 



Tumbleweeds 157 

“You all can go and make your filings in the 
next few days,” Carver said. “ Then I’ll furnish 
each of you with scrip to lay on your quarter. 
You can deed it over to me when you get your 
patent.” 

Two hours later Carver rode across the low 
ridge in search of Molly Lassiter. 

“ Ever see a prettier nook than this? ” he 
asked, as he dismounted. “ I told Bart I had 
just the place picked out for you and him.” 

A few trees, somewhat gnarled and stunted — 
but every such growth is noteworthy in a treeless 
country, and the black-jack belt did not extend 
so far north as this — sprouted in a little dent in 
the base of the ridge, a level floor of rich ground 
spread out before them. The little creek, fed by 
side-hill springs, purred merrily along the foot of 
the slope. 

“ It’s wonderful here,” she agreed. “ I’d love 
it if only Bart would stay here and prove up in¬ 
stead of selling out.” 

“ Maybe we can exert a little pressure and 
make Bart come to his milk,” said Carver. “ This 
is too good a place to sell out offhand. Wait till 
I scour a few layers of ashes off my face and 
we’ll ride up to the ridge so you can see my 
layout.” 

His face was still black from the ride across 




158 Tumbleweeds 

the burned areas and he repaired to the little 
creek and splashed face and hands in the clear 
cold water. The big Texan had come part way 
up the creek to converse with Bart and his voice 
carried to Carver as he made boastful comments 
upon his own farsightedness. 

“ I don’t know this country but I staked as 
good a piece as there is in the whole twelve thou¬ 
sand miles. That’s me! Knowhow? I’ll follow 
the leather-legs, I decides; the peelers that has 
rode this stretch. They’ll know where the best 
ground is. I’ll trail along and be there, for there 
ain’t no man can outride me when I’m up on this 
bay horse.” 

His voice followed them as Carver and Molly 
rode up the gentle slope of the ridge and the girl 
hoped she would not have this man as a neighbor 
for long. His bluster made her feel that Noll 
was near at hand. There had been a clean break 
in their relations since Carver’s recent turn in 
inexpensive beef, and Noll had asserted that 
Bart was no relative of his. If only he could 
convince others of that, she reflected, she would 
be far better satisfied. 

“ See,” Carver said, pointing as they topped 
the ridge. “ I’ve bargained for eleven quarters 
besides my own. That gives me eighteen hun¬ 
dred acres in one block. I’ll leave that first piece 


Tumbleweeds 


159 

in front of the house in grass, just like it is now. 
Then when old Nate comes down to visit round 
with me it will seem almost like the same old place 
he’s lived in for the past twenty years or more.” 

“ I’m glad, Don,” she said. “ But how can 
you be sure they’ll deed the land over to you 
after they get their patents. There’s no possible 
way to pin a man down to turn over his home¬ 
stead to another.” 

“ Not a way in the world,” he conceded. 
“ They could keep their place or sell it, once the 
patent’s issued, and I couldn’t lift a hand. I’d 
counted on losing maybe a quarter or two that 
very way. But not now; not with those Box T 
and Half Diamond H boys on the other end of it. 
Wouldn’t one of ’em throw me if he was offered 
ten times the price.” 

She hoped that he had gauged them rightly 
but her experience had taught her to doubt this 
class of drifting, homeless men. She had met a 
number of such during the last few years of 
drifting with Bart, mainly the associates of the 
two elder half-brothers, and she had come to be¬ 
lieve that trustworthiness was an infrequent trait 
among their kind. 

Bart mounted the ridge and joined them. 

“ What’s offered for my farm? ” he greeted. 


i6o 


Tumbleweeds 


“I’m not buying on the far side of the ridge,” 
said Carver. “ Only down below.” 

“ Then I’ll present it to you,” Bart returned 
cheerfully. “ By the way, you’re owing me three 
hundred or thereabouts on our little flier in steers. 
If you could let me have a piece of it I’ll trickle 
into Caldwell in the morning. I’ve got pressing 
business there in town.” 

“ I’ve invested that money for you,” Carver 
said. “ I’ve reserved scrip to cover your hundred 
and sixty acres. I’ll turn it over to you when you 
make your filing. They’ll issue a patent and 
then you and Molly will have some place to come 
hack to whenever you get weary of moving 
round. You’ll be owing me a little extra on the 
cost of the scrip but you can pay it off whenever 
it comes handy in the future.” 

Bart sighed gustily. 

“ I always did lean towards owning a farm 
that I didn’t have to live on,” he stated, “ and 
you’ve showed me the way. You always did 
treat me all right, Don, and I thank you. As 
long as I already owe you money I’d as leave owe 
you more. I’ll remember it better that way. 
Lend me twenty. I suspect the boys will he 
looking at their hole cards somewhat in your 
hunk house this evening and I’m always curious 


Tumbleweeds 161 

to see which one of the fifty-two cards each man 
has got in the hole.” 

Carver laughed and handed him the money. 

“ We’ll turn the house over to Molly to-night,” 
he said. “ I’ve got a tent cached in the bunk 
house that you can pitch over there on your 
place to-morrow.” 

The girl rested her hand on Carver’s arm as 
Bart left them. 

“ That was a wonderful thing to do for Bart,” 
she said. “ Oh, Don! Don’t you suppose he’ll 
stay there and keep it? ” 

“ Sure, Honey,” Carver assured her. “ You 
can’t clamp down on a range colt too sudden and 
put him on the picket. We’ll keep an eye on 
him and gradually decrease his range. Don’t you 
fret about Bart.” 

He was peering off across the country and 
she followed the direction of his gaze. A wagon 
had just crawled into view on the ridge on the 
far side of Bart’s filing and near the upper edge 
of it. The last rays of the setting sun caught 
the tattered canvas top. Even at a distance of 
three quarters of a mile both Carver and the 
girl recognized the outfit as old Judd Arm¬ 
strong’s, the horses moving slowly, their heads 
drooping dejectedly. 

“ You wait here, Molly,” Carver said. “ I’ll 


162 Tumbleweeds 

ride over and help them pick a good place to 
camp. Then we’ll stir up a bite for the boys to 
eat.” 

He intercepted the outfit as it pulled into the 
bottoms. The little old lady still clasped the 
staff of her flag. 

“ Staked your piece yet, Uncle? ” Carver 
greeted. 

“ Not yet,” said old Judd. “ We’ll likely 
locate one to-morrow. These horses is about 
played out and we’ll have to make camp here, 
I reckon.” 

The woman nodded serene agreement. Ever 
since she could remember they had been making 
camp. 

“ Maybe they can make one more drag of it 
over this next rise,” Carver said. “ It’s not 
much of a pull. There’s a nice little creek over 
across and a ripping good piece of ground that 
hasn’t been staked. They all run clear on acrost 
it and never noticed. It’s the next piece up the 
creek from mine.” 

He uncoiled his rope and made it fast to the 
wagon tongue, took a short snub on his saddle 
horn and pulled in ahead of Judd’s weary team. 
The horse buckled sturdily to his task and they 
made the crossing. 

“ You make camp right here on this creek,” 


Tumbleweeds 163 

Carver instructed. “ This is your claim. I’ll 
see you to-morrow, Aunty.” 

“ Thank you, son,” she said. “ You’ve done 
us a big favor. This is better ground than any 
we’ve crossed through. I was beginning to be 
just a mite worried for fear we mightn’t find a 
piece. It was real nice of you to tell us.” 

Carver turned his horse up towards where the 
sooner reclined on the creek bank. 

“ I instructed you to high-tail it out of the 
country,” he announced. “So you put forth 
from here sudden.” 

“ Do you imagine you’re in charge of this 
whole territory? ” the man demanded. 

“ I was once,” said Carver. “ Foreman of the 
old Half Diamond H. In lack of any better 
authority I’ve elected myself temporary head of 
the district so I can choose my own neighbors. 
I don’t pick you.” 

He handed the man a ten-dollar bill. 

“ I’m sorry to see your efforts wasted but may¬ 
be you can drown your grief in that,” he said. 
“ There’s not a chance in the world for you to 
make your claim stick—and I’ll see that you 
come to a bad end if you try to file. You can 
use your own judgment about when you flit 
from these parts.” 

He turned back toward Molly but the girl 


Tumbleweeds 


164 

had gone down her own side of the ridge as a 
second wagon rolled into the bottoms and halted 
on the upper end of the Texan’s filing. The out¬ 
fit of the ample soul and her solemn spouse had 
been wrecked in the early stages of the run and 
the repairs had required too great a time to per¬ 
mit of their overtaking the other stampeders. As 
Molly joined them she heard the voice of the 
Texan lifted in his war song as he returned from 
a boastful visit with some near-by homsteader. 

“ I’m a wild, wild rider 
And an awful mean fighter-” 

The song ceased abruptly as he spied the 
wagon on his claim and headed his mount for the 
spot. He leaned from his saddle and inspected 
the ample lady who still smiled through the 
grotesque mask of black ashes that had settled 
on her face, then let his eyes rove over the 
children in the depths of the wagon. 

“ This your claim? ” the solemn man inquired. 
“ We just want to wash up a bit and camp here 
for the night.” 

Molly waited for the abrupt refusal. The 
Texan gazed helplessly from one to another of 
the group. 

44 Mean to say you didn’t get a piece of your 
own with all this stretch to choose from? ” he 
demanded. 



Tumbleweeds 165 

The man shook his head. 

“ Have this one,” the Texan invited. “ I’ve 
been wondering what the hell I’d do with it.” 

The woman still smiled but a tear squeezed 
through and trickled down, leaving a trail in the 
grime of ashes on her face. She leaned over the 
infant in her arms to hide the evidence of weak¬ 
ness, speaking a word to the child. The Texan 
shifted uneasily in the saddle and Molly saw him 
in a new guise; not as a big ruffian but as an over¬ 
grown, kindly boy, helpless to extricate himself 
from this trying situation. A happy thought 
struck him. 

“I’d cry too if I thought I had to live here,” 
he said. “I’d trade this whole damn country 
for a square rod in Texas,” and he headed his 
horse back down the creek. 

Hours later Molly Lassiter reclined on Car¬ 
ver’s camp bed which he had spread for her on 
the floor of the Half Diamond H ranch house. 

The Cherokee Run was over. At noon there 
had been a vast tract of virgin territory, twelve 
thousand square miles of untenanted lands,— 
and within four hours of that first bugle call it 
had been settled, staked to the last square inch. 
The wildest stampede that the world had ever 
seen was a matter of history. 

A variety of sounds floated through the open 


Tumbleweeds 


166 

window. The long, many-roomed bunk house in 
rear of the frame building was crowded to over¬ 
flowing. All the cowhands for miles around had 
followed the old custom of dropping in at the 
nearest ranch when caught out on the range at 
night, certain of finding a welcome and a feed. 
They had feasted unreservedly upon Carver’s 
food cache which he had planted at the ranch 
weeks before. 

Molly heard two voices raised in the chant of 
the tumbleweeds as two belated riders ap¬ 
proached. Always these men sang when they 
rode at night, having acquired the habit on many 
a weary circuit of the herd, singing to quiet their 
charges on the bedground. 

The big Texan’s voice carried to her from the 
bunk house. 

“ Now when I play poker with strangers I first 
state the rules,” he announced. “ The way stud 
poker is dealt is to hand out the top card first and 
the next one next, and so on down to the bottom 
card which comes off last and is not to be removed 
prior to its turn.” 

“ It’s nice to have some one who actually knows 
how the rules run,” another voice answered. “ If 
any little squabble crops up we won’t have to 
debate the question but just ask you and find 
out for sure.” 


Tumbleweeds 167 

“ I’ll settle all arguments,” the Texan volun¬ 
teered. “ You’ll note that I’ve stuck my knife 
here in the table and I’ll certainly remonstrate 
with the first party that introduces any irregu¬ 
larities.” 

The two newcomers rode into the yard, unsad¬ 
dled and turned their horses into the corral. One 
of them answered the questions regarding his 
claim as he appeared in the door of the bunk 
house. 

“ I quit it,” he announced. “ A wagon came 
dragging along an hour ago with a wild woman 
aboard. Leastways she was talking wild — and 
frequent. They’d locked hubs and piled up on 
the start. I presented them my place. I hadn’t 
no use for it. All my life it’s been all I could 
do to scratch a living off the face of the whole out¬ 
doors, so there wasn’t a chance for me to scrape a 
income off one little quarter section anyway.” 

“ I had the piece next to his,” the second cow¬ 
boy stated. “ But the other set of locked hubs 
came dangling along. The woman ahead would 
screech back that the tangle was all her fault from 
keeping too close, and wouldn’t the other party 
be sure to stake the next piece to theirs so’s they 
could neighbor back and forth. Just to quiet her 
down I handed mine to the parties she was so hell¬ 
bent to neighbor with. I was afraid she’d have a 


i68 


Tumbleweeds 


headache in the morning if she kept at it; and 
besides I couldn’t lay out there and listen to that 
gabble.” 

Molly burrowed her face deep in the pillow. 
During the day she had seen much that was gold 
beneath that rusty exterior of the tumbleweeds 
and much that was dross beneath the golden sur¬ 
face of many of the pumpkins. These men who 
rallied to Carver, drifters all, were a different 
breed of drifters than those she had met as friends 
of her two half-brothers. And now the tumble¬ 
weeds had been cast out of their domain. 

“ Hand me them cards,” said the big Texan. 
“ Now we’ll have an honest deal. I’d trust my¬ 
self further than any other man I ever met.” 


IX 


Carver looked from the window of the Half 
Diamond H. All down the valley were twink¬ 
ling lights which denoted the presence of the 
homes of early rising settlers. Off to the east 
and west there were lights resting at higher levels, 
these from cabins on side hill claims on the rising 
flanks of the valley. As the morning glow 
flooded across the country the lights paled and 
the habitations themselves appeared, first as 
darker blots emerging gradually from the sur¬ 
rounding obscurity, then in distinct outline as the 
shadows lifted. Some were tiny frame cabins, 
the most of them unpainted. The greater num¬ 
ber were sod huts, some few merely dugouts. 
Poor habitations these, no doubt, yet they were 
homes and as circumstances permitted they would 
be replaced by more pretentious ones. 

The virgin stretches of the Cherokee lands had 
been transformed into a solid agricultural com¬ 
munity overnight. The run was not quite two 
months past, yet even the style of expression, the 
customs of speech and the topic of general con¬ 
versation had experienced an alteration as de- 


Tumbleweeds 


170 

cided as the physical changes in the countryside. 
No more the heated arguments over the relative 
merits of two cow horses but instead a less spir¬ 
ited discussion concerning the desirability of 
Berkshires over Durco-Jerseys. The never-end¬ 
ing controversy as to the superiority of the 
center-fire as against the three-quarters’ rig had 
been supplanted by an interchange of advice as 
to the seeding of crops and the proper care of 
hogs. Where but a few weeks back the bronc 
fighters had met to exchange bits of range gossip, 
housewives now visited back and forth to ex¬ 
change recipes for making jell. 

Conditions had favored late plowing, a fortu¬ 
nate circumstance in view of the late date of the 
opening, and a part of the settlers had made 
every effort to seed a certain acreage to winter 
wheat. Carver had not wasted a day in his en¬ 
deavor to get a portion of his holdings broken 
out and in shape to produce the following season. 
Circumstances had favored him. Cash was a rare 
commodity among the majority of the home¬ 
steaders and in lieu of it they frequently effected 
an exchange of work. The spirit of cooperation 
was large. Homesteads must be fenced and 
materials were expensive. Many could not afford 
such a drain upon their finances until such time 
as they could harvest a crop. 


Tumbleweeds 171; 

Carver had supplied needy neighbors with 
posts and wire from the great store he had sal¬ 
vaged from the line fences of the old Half Dia¬ 
mond H, requiring of each man in return that he 
should start at once upon the task of plowing* 
harrowing and drilling in winter wheat on a cer¬ 
tain specified acreage of Carver’s holdings. Most 
of the settlers had implements of a sort. All had 
plows, some few possessed drills, and what one 
man lacked he borrowed from his neighbor, the 
favor to be later returned in like service or in- 
labor when occasion should offer and so all were 
enabled to perform the tasks which Carver re¬ 
quired of them in return for their fencing. He 
now had eight hundred acres seeded to winter 
wheat, planted somewhat later than was custom¬ 
ary but with an even chance of making a crop.. 

The transformation of the unowned lands had 
been sweeping and complete. One now rode be¬ 
tween fences along section lines that would soon: 
became graded highways. Towns were spring¬ 
ing up with mushroom suddenness and country 
schoolhouses were in the course of construction 
at many points. A picture of rural activity 
stretched away on all sides, yet through it all a 
vague whisper of unrest persisted, as if the spirit 
of the old days refused to be cast off so entirely» 

The cowhands who had ridden the Strip con- 


172 Tumbleweeds 

tinued to ride it. Always there had been a sur¬ 
plus of riders during the winter months and these 
jobless ones had grub-lined from one ranch to 
the next, certain of finding a welcome and a meal 
at any spot where circumstance or fancy led 
them. They continued to act upon this supposi¬ 
tion, sanctioned by long years of custom, and the 
settlers looked with disfavor upon these rovers 
who dropped in at their cabins and expected to 
be fed as a matter of course, deeming them para¬ 
sites upon the community, drones who were un¬ 
willing to work and produce; for the cowhands 
scornfully refused to milk or follow a plow in 
return for their board. From the first they had 
swarmed in upon Carver, overjoyed at finding 
one man of their own sort among all this clutter 
of aliens, — one man who understood. 

Carver had fed all comers, knowing that while 
they would neither milk nor plow, they would 
willingly turn their hands to any task which had 
been part of their regular duties with a cow out¬ 
fit in the old range days. They had stretched 
every foot of his fences. When there was freight¬ 
ing to be done there were always willing volun¬ 
teers. Some he had sent north to Hinman’s 
range to bring back the fifty head of horses he had 
purchased before the opening. The boys had 
gentled these green colts and taught them the 


Tumbleweeds 173 

feel of harness. Always there were a dozen grub- 
liners stopping at the bunk house overnight. 
Every evening Carver recited the tasks of the fol¬ 
lowing day and the men apportioned these chores 
among themselves through the medium of freeze- 
out poker. Carver had never cooked a meal or 
washed a dish since the day of the run. 

He now thrust his head from the back door. 

“Ho!” he called. “Rollout!” 

There were sounds of instant activity from the 
bunk house. 

Carver tapped on a door in the ranch house. 

“ Coming, son,” Nate Younger answered. 
“Be with you right off.” 

The original owner of the Half Diamond H 
had come down to view it under the new condi¬ 
tions. He had found his old room fitted up in 
much the same fashion as when he had occupied 
it in the past. A hundred acres of grassland, un¬ 
touched by the plow, spread out before the house. 

“ Don’t find things so much changed right in 
the immediate foreground, do you, Nate? ” Car¬ 
ver asked. 

“ Not much,” said Nate. “ Looks pretty much 
the same. It is real white of you to reserve the 
old man’s room for him.” 

He listened to the drone of voices from the 
bunk house. 


174 Tumbleweeds 

“ Must be considerable of a drain on your 
finances to feed all the grub-liners these days,” 
lie said. 

“ Somewhat,” Carver admitted. “ But I some¬ 
way can’t gather courage to shut them off. Half 
of them are still conversing about when work 
opens up in the spring, same as they’ve always 
talked in winters. They don’t realize yet that 
spring work won’t ever open up for their sort 
again.” 

After breakfasting Carver rode up the trail 
that threaded the low saddle in the ridge back 
of the house and dropped down to the Lassiters’ 
claim on the far side of it. Bart, fired by the ex¬ 
ample of those around him, had worked steadily 
since the day of the run. Cowhands stopping at 
Carver’s place had helped Bart fence his claim. 
With two of Carver’s teams he had broken out a 
forty-acre piece and seeded it to winter wheat. 
Through the medium of the nightly poker game 
in the bunk house of the Half Diamond H he had 
accumulated enough cash to purchase the mate¬ 
rials for the construction of a three-room frame 
house to supplement the sod hut in which he and 
Molly had been living since the run. But now his 
enthusiasm had waned and Carver found him 
seated on a pile of new lumber, gazing moodily 
off across the country. 


Tumbleweeds 175 

“ I’m needing relaxation bad,” Bart greeted. 
“ Why, I wouldn’t be able to find my way around 
Caldwell, it’s been that long since I’ve been in 
town. Isn’t it about time you’re getting that 
hundred head of yearlings off Hinman’s range 
and bringing them down here? ” 

u Ina few days now,” Carver admitted. “ I’ll 
be starting up after them before long.” 

“ Why don’t you send me? ” Bart suggested. 

“ With you in charge they might increase too 
fast on the homeward way,” said Carver. 

“ I’ll guarantee not to arrive with one extra 
head over the specified number,” Bart offered. 
“ I’ll go up and get them, just as a sort of favor 
in return for many a kind deed you’ve done for 
me.” 

“Not you,” Carver declined. “ Anyway,, 
you’ve got all your lumber on the ground now 
and you want to stay on the job until you’ve 
built the house. I’ll send over a few volunteers 
from the bunk house squad to help you throw it 
up. 

“ That lumber is too green to work up just 
yet,” Bart objected. “ I’ll rest up in town till 
the sap quits flowing through those boards and 
they season up till a man can run a saw through 
’em. The birds were singing in those very trees, 
last week.” 


Tumbleweeds 


176 

It was evident that Bart was bent upon having 
his vacation under any possible excuse. 

“All right — go ahead and relax,” said Car¬ 
ver. “ Only don’t be gone too long.” 

“ I’ll be drifting over to Casa and see how the 
County Seat ruckus is coming on,” Bart decided. 
“ I’ll report on the latest developments when I 
tome back.” 

A thriving town had come into being on the site 
of the box car which had once borne the name of 
Casa and which had been sacked and burned. A 
bank and a frame hotel, two general merchandise 
establishments, a hardware and implement con¬ 
cern, grocery stores, restaurants, saloons, two 
livery barns, a drug store, barber shop and pool 
hall, all glaringly new and mostly unpainted, 
made up the business district of Casa, which now 
numbered a population of four hundred souls. 
Various businesses were conducted in board- 
floored tents until such time as the proprietors 
could secure more permanent quarters. 

Casa, by virtue of both population and loca¬ 
tion, had considered herself the logical choice for 
County Seat. The government appointee 
charged with such locations had listened and 
agreed, provided only that a personal bonus of 
one thousand dollars be tendered him along with 
the other arguments. Graft was open and fla- 


Tumbleweeds 177 

grant in the early days of the Strip and com¬ 
munities as well as individuals paid the price for 
official favors. The citizens’ council, a volunteer 
body of Casa business men, had flatly refused and 
the locater had thereupon designated Oval 
Springs, a little camp some miles to the south as 
the legal center of county government. This 
move was destined to precipitate one of the bitter 
and enduring county-seat wars for which the 
West is famed. Casa was not alone in her 
troubles, for this was but one of three such con¬ 
troversies at various points in the Strip. 

The railroad had backed Casa in the feud from 
the first. At the time of designation Oval 
Springs could boast neither a side track nor a 
station and the railroad had steadfastly refused 
to halt its trains. The citizens of Oval Springs 
had hastened to erect a large frame building to 
serve as a courthouse, a second to serve as county 
jail, this last edifice complete except for a few 
exterior touches and a coat of paint. The steel¬ 
framed cells were already installed and the jail 
was open for business. The trains still rolled 
through and eventually Oval Springs took mat¬ 
ters into their own hands and elected to make that 
point the terminal from both ways by tearing up 
two hundred yards of track. A stock train had 
been piled in a gulch, a passenger train derailed. 


178 Tumbleweeds 

This last had constituted a case of obstructing 
the delivery of the United States mail and Carl 
Mattison, appointed deputy marshal in the post 
from which Freel had resigned, had been sent in 
with a posse to straighten out the tangle. 

Alf Wellman, who had staked his claim ad¬ 
joining the present town site of Oval Springs, 
had been appointed sheriff until such time as an 
election could be held. It was freely stated in 
Casa that the sheriff and his deputies declined to 
interfere with the lawless element that sought 
to destroy railroad property and so force the rail¬ 
road company to halt its trains. The feud was 
destined to be bitter and sustained and it was 
slated that another fifteen years should pass be¬ 
fore Casa should come into her own as the per¬ 
manent seat of county affairs. 

Two days after Bart’s departure he rode up 
to the Half Diamond H at daylight. 

“ Just dropped by for breakfast and to report 
on the general situation,” he informed. “ I 
changed my mind after leaving the other day and 
dropped down to view the new county seat. 
Quite an alteration in those parts since the night 
you and me camped there during round-up with¬ 
out a house anywheres in sight. There’s trouble 
brewing down there in quantities.” 


Tumbleweeds 179 

“ Then how did you happen to leave? ” Carver 
inquired. 

“ Last night some unknown parties staged a 
midnight battle with the marshal’s posse that’s 
guarding the relaid tracks, during which it’s re¬ 
ported that one of the posse was killed and two 
others damaged. Under cover of this ruckus 
some others succeeded in blowing up the bridge 
just south of town and traffic is once more sus¬ 
pended!” 

“ And which side were you on? ” Carver asked. 

“ I couldn’t hardly determine,” Bart confessed. 
“ I was maybe just a trifle lit.” 

“ Being one of our leading lights in that re¬ 
spect,” said Carver, “ I expect maybe you were.” 

“ As near as I can make out, I was on the side 
of the law,” Bart stated. “ Leastways I was in 
the powder squad that wrecked the bridge and the 
sheriff headed the party. My participation was 
accidental. I saw Wellman and another man 
easing out of town and I trailed them, arriving 
just as they touched off the charge, so you might 
say I acted the role of the passive spectator. The 
whole town boiled out and we dispersed among 
the crowd. I was dead anxious to be lined up 
with law and order, but with the law on both 
sides I couldn’t quite make out which one was 
proper, so I flitted.” 


180 Tumbleweeds 

“ Any idea who led the fight against Matti- 
son? ” Carver asked. 

“Not a guess — unless it was Freel,” Bart 
denied. “ He’s Wellman’s head deputy and it 
might have been him — only I can’t someway pic¬ 
ture Freel as indulging in a fracas where other 
folks will be shooting back at him.” 

“ There’s quite a bunch of boys in the bunk 
house,” Carver said. “ Bight after breakfast I’ll 
send over a bunch to help you start the house.” 

“ Bight after breakfast I’ll be riding toward 
Caldwell,” said Bart. “ In proportion to the 
way Oval Springs has growed, I’d judge that 
Caldwell would be bigger than London by now.” 

“ Caldwell has about a fourth the population 
she had three months ago,” Carver informed. 

“ I’d as leave see a town that’s shrunk as one 
that has growed,” Bart philosophically decided. 
“I’m not particular, and I’m bound to find it 
filled with new interests. Just two days; then 
I’ll be back.” 

In the early evening Carver mounted the cow 
trail that threaded the low dip in the ridge be¬ 
tween his place and Bart’s claim. As he topped 
it he could see Molly coming up the hill from the 
cabin. They frequently met here for a brief chat 
in the evenings. 

“You mustn’t mind Bart’s rambling off for a 


Tumbleweeds 181 

few days,” he said, as the girl joined him. “ He’s 
stayed with it in good shape and it’s only in the 
last week he’s been restless. He’ll be back on the 
job in a day or two.” 

He allowed his gaze to drift across the broad 
acreage of plowed ground in the bottoms, — his 
ground, seeded to winter wheat. 

44 Eight hundred acres seeded to wheat,” he 
stated. “ All put in by trading around. I’ve got 
considerable of a farm, but don’t even own one 
plow of my own — nor a drill. The grub-liners 
put up my fences and broke all my horses to 
work. So far I’ve worried along without much 
of an outlay of cash; not one cent paid out for 
labor. But I’m in debt somewhat for seed wheat 
and provisions to feed the bunk house occupants 
that turn up every night.” 

He directed her graze over the rich bottom land 
extending for five miles down the valley to a 
point where the little town of Alvin had come 
into being. 

“ The best land in this whole country,” he 
stated. 44 Every acre of it will bring from twelve 
to fifteen dollars the day a man gets his patent. 
I’ll buy it up piece by piece, a quarter at a time, 
as fast as any party wants to sell; mortgage a 
part of it to buy more and turn back every dollar 
that comes off of it into more land. Some day 


182 Tumbleweeds 

I’ll own all that lower valley with the Half Dia¬ 
mond H at the head of it so we can look out 
across it all from the house. I’ll follow the price 
up till it touches forty and then stop buying. 
Then there’ll come a day when we can stand there 
at the old ranch house and know that every acre 
between it and the flourishing city of Alvin will 
be worth a hundred dollars flat.” 

As he sketched his plans she could vision thou¬ 
sands of acres of ripening grain waving in the 
bottoms; the huge new barns of the Half Dia¬ 
mond H groaning with hay and forage crops for 
feeding the hundreds of sleek thoroughbred cattle 
with which the place was stocked. But all that 
was a matter of the future and the present was 
sufficiently amazing in itself. 

A few months back she had resided in an iso¬ 
lated line camp on Turkey Creek with no other 
habitation within a dozen miles. Now she was 
blocked in on all sides by neighbors; Mrs. Crans¬ 
ton, the ample lady who resided on the next claim 
below Molly’s, — and her husband was not really 
a gloomy soul. He had merely been over anxious 
during the days preceding the run, harassed by 
a haunting dread that he would not be successful 
in locating a home for his family. He was in 
reality a rather genial party, Molly had found. 
Then there was Mrs. Downing, the hysterical 


Tumbleweeds 183 

lady, who was not in the least hysterical but quite 
normal since Molly had nursed her through an ill¬ 
ness brought on by the excitement of the stam¬ 
pede; the Lees, with whom Mrs. Downing had 
been so anxious to neighbor, had proved to be de¬ 
lightful neighbors indeed. There was Orkstrom, 
the big Dane whose wife toiled with him in the 
field; Arnold Crosby, fresh from school, who had 
brought his girl bride to share his little frame 
homestead shack; old Judd Armstrong and his 
serene little mate. The whole countryside for 
miles around was peopled with a motley assort¬ 
ment ranging from retired professional men to 
foreigners who spoke scarcely a word of under¬ 
standable English. 

“ You told me once the sort of quiet home life 
you pined for most,” he said. “ And I volun¬ 
teered to set out in search of it. This is it, all 
round us, just as you pictured it to me on that 
day in Caldwell.” 

“ Yes,” she said. “ This is it — exactly what 
I’ve always been wanting.” 

She watched the smoke spirals rising from a 
hundred cabins; the stretches of black plowed 
ground enclosed by long lines of fence posts. 
Far down the valley the new buildings of Alvin 
showed as white spots in the waning light. The 
new schoolhouse in the bottoms was nearly com- 


184 Tumbleweeds 

pleted, the school in which Molly was to teach; 
all these evidences of an old civilization fastening 
upon a raw new country and lending an air of 
permanency and peace. 

“ We’ve found what we were looking for,” he . 
said. “ What more peaceful scene could one 
find?” 

But Molly, too, was aware of that vague rustle 
of unrest, even a froth of lawlessness, that seemed 
to pervade it all; the jobless cowhands riding 
their old domain; the bitter county-seat feuds in 
progress. Over the line in the Territory two 
trains had been held up and looted. Banks in 
small towns along the southern fringe of Kansas 
had been subjected to a series of daring raids. 
The forces of the law were imperfectly organized, 
frequently leagued with the lawless. Many old- 
time riders of the unowned lands were living on 
claims and their cabins were ever open for any 
of the boys who sought safety there. They asked 
no questions, these men, and answered none. The 
Osage Hills in the Territory afforded a safe 
haven for those who were hard-pressed and the 
way of the transgressor was not difficult. The 
girl commented upon this to Carver. 

“ That’s only the ghost of the old days hover¬ 
ing over the corpse of the unowned lands,” he 
said. “ A passing phase. It’s only a froth, like 


Tumbleweeds 185 

bubbles and trash on the surface of a deep pond 
when it’s stirred by the wind.” 

He waved an arm toward the peaceful rural 
scene unrolling all around them. “ All that is the 
solid, enduring part. That will last. The other 
is just the last feeble rustle of the tumbleweeds 
we’re hearing now. 

‘ All tumbleweeds hail from nowhere. 

Their one favorite residence; 

But all are bound for the same graveyard — 

Hung up in a barb-wire fence/ 

“ That’s the finish of all tumbleweeds, girl,” he 
said. “ Soon or late they get crowded into some 
fence corner and their travels cease. Now me, 
I’m pocketed that way too, only I’ve taken root. 
Aren’t you about ready to come over and ride 
herd on me, sort of, and see that some strong 
breeze doesn’t uproot me and blow me off some¬ 
where? ” 

“ Not that, Don. I can’t,” she said. “I’m 
sorry. I want to go on just as I am for a while. 
It’s too perfect to disturb. You haven’t an idea 
how much I’m enjoying it, visiting round with 
Mrs. Downing, the Cranstons and the Lees and 
all the rest, exchanging recipes and listening to 
all the family woes and triumphs. You wouldn’t 
find much excitement in hearing for the fourth 
occasion just what a frightful time Johnny 


18.6 Tumbleweeds 

Downing had when he cut his first baby teeth; 
or about that historical event when Ella Crans¬ 
ton essayed her first barefooted venture outside 
and stepped on a hornet, and what a fearful 
expense it’s been to keep her in shoes ever since, 
— just refuses to go barefooted even in summers, 
since that day, Ella does. But I positively revel 
in all that. It’s been so long since I’ve had many 
women friends. I don’t want to lose a minute of 
all this.” 

“I’d contract not to spoil it for you,” he 
offered. “You could go right on doing the same 
things you do now. Maybe I’d learn to tingle 
and thrill over Johnny’s teething myself. He set 
them in my thumb the last time I’m over at 
Downings so I take it they all come through in 
good shape. Couldn’t you learn to be loving me 
just a trifle if you’d make a real earnest effort? ” 

“ A lot — without the least effort,” she frankly 
admitted. “ Don’t you know, Don, that every 
real woman is always just on the verge of loving 
some tumbleweed? She doesn’t have to try lov¬ 
ing him but to try to keep from it. That’s the 
difficult part.” 

“ Then why not take the easy trail out? ” he 
suggested. 

“ All women lean toward the wild weeds — 
they’ve got that in them,” she said. “ But the 


Tumbleweeds 


187 

ones who listen to that call always pay in the end. 
Oh, I don’t mean that you’d ever do anything I’d 
be ashamed of,” she hastened to add. “ You 
wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be distrust of you, but 
fear for you, that would be my lot if I let myself 
get to caring. Don’t you see? I’ve loved two 
tumbleweeds before now — Dad and Bart — and 
I don’t feel quite up to loving a third. It’s a 
woman’s portion to sit and wait for bad news. 
So let’s go on just as we are.” 

Three wagons rolled up the valley and pulled 
into the Half Diamond II. 

“ There comes Thanksgiving dinner,” said 
Carver. “ Old Nate was down with us overnight. 
Likely he knew that I couldn’t afford to feed the 
grub-liners indefinitely so he said he’d ride down 
to Alvin and send up a bite for the boys. It ap¬ 
pears like he’d sent it in tons; enough to run to 
next August. We’ll be expecting you and Bart 
over for a turkey dinner to-morrow,” 



X 


The one business block of Wharton, a little 
town twenty miles north of the Cherokee-Kansas 
line, seemed almost deserted. Four men sat on 
the edge of a raised-board sidewalk midway of 
the block. Two others leaned against the sup¬ 
port posts of a wooden shelter which roofed the 
sidewalk before a hardware store. Four horse¬ 
men clattered round the corner, their black masks 
furnishing a sinister contrast to the quiet village 
scene, and the few citizens of Wharton who 
chanced to be abroad witnessed the advent of the 
modern bandit, come to replace the road agent 
whose day had passed when railroad transporta¬ 
tion superseded stage-coach travel on the over¬ 
land trails. 

Three of the men dropped from their saddles 
before the Wharton bank, two of them entering 
while the third stood guard before the door and 
the mounted man held the horses of the other 
three. 

The man in the saddle addressed the startled 
spectators and his voice, although not raised 


Tumbleweeds 189 

above a conversational tone, carried the length 
of the silent street. 

lake it easy,” he advised. “ No one’s going 
to get hurt unless you start acting up,” 

He spoke with quiet assurance but the man on 
the door was of a more blustering type. 

“ All you cattle stand dead quiet,” he threat¬ 
ened. “ Not a sound there! You!” he bawled as 
a man shifted his position; “ what did I tell you 
about keeping quiet.” 

“ Keep quiet yourself,” the man on the horse 
advised. “ You’ll stampede the lot of them with 
your gab.” 

Those within the bank reported later that one 
of the inside men was silent throughout the affair, 
never speaking a word but instead making his 
wishes known by motions of his hand. His com¬ 
panion seemed nervous and excited. 

The pair emerged from the bank and the three 
dismounted men swung to their saddles. As the 
quartet jumped their horses down the street 
the door of the hardware store opened and the 
reports of a rifle rolled forth in swift succession. 
The man who had held the horses lurched dizzily, 
sprawling forward over the saddle horn, then fell 
to the street as his mount jumped sidewise. The 
silent man set his own horse back on its haunches, 
seized the reins of the loose animal and leaned 


Tumbleweeds 


190 

from the saddle to help the fallen man to re¬ 
mount. The blustering party whirled his horse 
and emptied his gun at the front of the store from 
which the concealed riflemen operated. Specta¬ 
tors, galvanized into action by the splintering 
glass of store windows, ducked hurriedly for 
cover. As the fallen man regained his saddle the 
three men rounded the corner and followed after 
the fourth, who had held on without slackening 
his speed. 

Near noon of the following day Carver was 
well on his way toward Hinman’s range to bring 
hack the hundred head of yearlings he had pur¬ 
chased in the spring. The news of the Wharton 
raid had been carried to the bunk house by a 
grub-liner the night before and Carver turned it 
over in his mind as he rode. 

“ The blustering man on the door was Noll 
Lassiter,’’ he mused. “ And the silent man inside 
was Milt. The nervous party — I can’t place 
him. I’m wondering about the casual individual 
who held the horses. It certainly does look as if 
they’d cancelled the family feud.” 

For Bart Lassiter’s two-day trip to Caldwell 
had lengthened into a week and he had not yet 
returned. The name of Lassiter had been whis¬ 
pered in connection with recent misdeeds but the 
raids had been frequent and at widely separate 



Tumbleweeds 191 

points. It was certain that Milt and Noll Lassi¬ 
ter had not participated in some of these, their 
whereabouts at the time having been definitely 
established, and there was no proof that they had 
been connected with any one of the numerous 
affairs. 

Carver angled slightly westward as he reached 
the sand-hill country near the line. This was 
the poorest land in all the Strip, yet in com¬ 
mon with better stuff it had been staked 
solidly on the day of the run. The majority of 
these sand-hill claims were destined to change 
hands many times before prove-up work would 
be completed and patents issued for the land. 
Carver found this country unfenced and the few 
homestead cabins were mainly deserted. The sur¬ 
face was rough and choppy, a veritable maze of 
dunes, some covered with tufts of tall red grass 
and studded with clumps of dwarfed brush and 
needle-leaved yucca plants. There were ridges 
and domes of white blow-sand, worn by the action 
of the wind. These stretches of sand had re¬ 
tarded the progress of the fire which had swept 
the country in late summer and the most of it 
was covered with grass. There were occasional 
flats carpeted with short, wiry salt grass. As 
Carver neared the edge of one of these basins he 
suddenly pulled up his horse and peered through 


Tumbleweeds 


192 

the fringe of tall grass that graced the crest of 
an intermediate ridge. 

“ Here comes the casual party now,” he com¬ 
mented. “ Wounded as stated in the reports, and 
with a posse right at his heels.” 

Two hundred yards out in the flat a rider was 
pounding down toward the possible cover af¬ 
forded by the rough country which Carver had 
just traversed. His left arm hung stiffly at his 
side and he turned in his saddle with an effort as 
he gazed back at a group of horsemen, some 
eight or ten of them, that were surging out into 
the far edge of the depression a mile or more 
behind. 

As Bart crossed the low ridge he started to 
whirl his horse at the sight of the man posted in 
his line of flight, then recognized Carver and 
held straight on. Carver turned and rode with 
him, noting that Bart’s horse was almost spent. 

“I’d trade mounts and let them pick me up 
instead. I could furnish a perfect alibi,” Carver 
said. “But that wouldn’t do. They’d trace the 
ownership of your horse.” 

“ Don’t let that point deter you,” Bart re¬ 
turned easily. “ This is no horse of mine. I 
wouldn’t own him. I borrowed him, sort of, on 
the spur of the moment.” 

“ But the saddle,” Carver insisted. 


Tumbleweeds 193 

“ Goes with the horse,” said Bart. “ You’re 
not up to yourself or you’d recognize that it 
ain’t my outfit.” 

“All right. Let’s switch. Quick!” Carver 
ordered. “ Duck up that coulee to the left and 
keep on the grass where it won’t leave any 
tracks,” he advised, when the change had been 
effected. “ Push him hard and hold to the bot¬ 
toms.” 

Carver veered off to the right. He had covered 
something over half a mile when the posse sighted 
him as he crossed a low ridge. For another three 
miles he maintained a lead, then rode out on to a 
high point of ground and halted his weary mount. 
The posse had fanned out over a half-mile front 
to guard against their quarry’s doubling back 
through the choppy breaks. One after another 
of the man-hunters sighted the solitary figure on 
the ridge and headed for the spot. Carver turned 
and regarded the first two that approached. 
They pulled their horses to a walk, allowing time 
for another pair of riders to draw in from the 
right. 

“ Sit tight there,” one man called. “No queer 
stuff now! ” 

“ Where did all this delegation spring from? ” 
Carver demanded. 


194 Tumbleweeds 

The sheriff reached the spot and assumed com¬ 
mand. 

“ You, Ben, get his gun,” he ordered and one 
of the four crowded his horse closer to Carver’s 
and reached to remove his gun from its holster. 

The sheriff reigned over a Kansas county and 
his jurisdiction did not extend to the Strip, a fact 
which had not deterred him from crossing the line 
with his posse when hot after his man. The men 
were regarding their catch with some doubt. 

“Was that buzzard wearing chaps? ” one man 
asked of the others. 

Carver grinned and answered the query as if it 
had been directed at him. 

“ I couldn’t say as to the style of his pants,” 
he returned. “ But his headgear was black.” 

“ It was for a fact,” one of the posse testified, 
eyeing Carver’s battered gray hat. 

“ What’s all this? ” the sheriff demanded. 
“ What about a black hat? ” 

He too was studying Carver’s apparel. 

“ This fellow’s not dressed the same,” he ad¬ 
mitted. “ But the horse looks like the one he was 
up on.” 

“ It’s the self-same horse he was straddling,” 
said Carver. “ He’s got a better one under him 
now.” 

/ 

“ Did you trade? ” the sheriff demanded. 


i 


Tumbleweeds 195 

“ No, he did,” said Carver. 

“ Speak up! Get it out quick,” the officer 
ordered. 

“ I was off prospecting around on foot,” Car¬ 
ver explained. “ As I sauntered back I observed 
this crow-bait standing where my horse had been. 
I caught one brief glimpse of a black hat through 
the grass on a ridge and knew that the party 
under it was making off with my horse. I 
crawled this old wreck and took in behind him. 
Never did see him again — which isn’t surprising 
in view of the fact that he’s up in the middle of 
the best horse in three States. That was one good 
horse of mine. I’ll back him against any mount 
in these parts. That miscreant made a good 
trade. One time during round-up last summer 
that pony packed me seventy miles in one day 
and wasn’t even breathing hard.” 

“ Oh, damn your horse and its virtues,” the 
sheriff interrupted. “ We’ll take you along, any¬ 
way. How do I know you wasn’t planted out 
here to help him make a get-away? ” 

“ You don’t,” Carver admitted. “ For all you 
know, why he might have sent me word about 
whatever misdeed he was planning, stating the 
exact spot where your posse would jump him 
and outlining his route of escape from there on, 



Tumbleweeds 


196 

so’s I could be posted just where his horse would 
play out and he’d be needing a fresh one.” 

The officer frowned at this absurd line of de¬ 
duction and Carver grinned at his discomfiture. 
The three additional members of the posse, hav¬ 
ing ridden well off toward the left, had now 
sighted the group on the ridge and were ap¬ 
proaching the spot. 

“If you want me for exhibit A in the evidence 
I don’t mind going along,” Carver added. 

The three additional members of the posse rode 
up and two of them greeted Carver by name. 

44 Whenever did you elect to turn outlaw? ” 
one man asked. 44 Sho! We’ve snarled things 
up,” he added. 44 Carver wasn’t into this mess.” 

44 Do you know this party? ” the sheriff in¬ 
quired. 

44 Do I? ” the man laughed. 44 If I had a dollar 
for every one I’ve borrowed off him I’d pay half 
of ’em back.” 

Carver’s name was known to the sheriff. It 
was certain that he could be found if his testi¬ 
mony was needed later. 

44 No use holding you,” he said to Carver. 
44 He’s made a clean get-away. I’m a little off my 
range — no authority here in the Strip; but I 
wasn’t going to let the line stop me when we was 
right on his heels.” 


Tumbleweeds 197 

“ Why were you wanting him? ” Carver asked. 
He raised his eyebrows in evident surprise as the 
officer gave the details of the Wharton hold-up 
and announced that the man they had hunted was 
the wounded one of the quartet. 

“ They holed up somewheres till dark but we 
got word they’d headed down this way in the 
night,” the officer explained. “ Likely this fel¬ 
low was feeling sick and had to hide out. He’d 
spotted us riding into the sand hills and was just 
climbing his horse to make a run for it when we 
sighted him over a mile ahead. He’d posted him¬ 
self on a ridge so’s he could watch all ways. He’s 
up on your fresh horse and miles off by now. No 
use for us to go on. I’ll send word to Oval 
Springs to the sheriff there that he’s down in this 
country.” 

“Any idea who he might be?” Carver in¬ 
quired. “ Anyone along the line get a look at 
him.” 

“ Not one,” the sheriff denied. “ He’s in the 
clear as far as identity is concerned. Nobody’s 
set eyes on him from the time they rode out of 
Wharton till we jumped him this morning — ex¬ 
cepting the man who reported that he’d seen four 
men ride this way after night. That crippled 
shoulder may give him away. We’ll be riding on 
back. I’ll want that horse you’re on so we can 



198 Tumbleweeds 

trace its ownership. May get it on him that 
way.” 

“ I’ll nurse him along over to Engle’s place on 
Slate Creek,” Carver offered. “ Engle will lend 
me a horse to ride home.” 

When Carver reached the home ranch a man 
waited there to inform him that Carl Mattison 
desired his presence in Oval Springs. 

“ Tell him I’ll be with him between now and 
to-morrow noon,” Carver instructed the messen¬ 
ger. 

Bart Lassiter rode up to the house an hour 
before dark. Carver had expected him to wait 
until after nightfall before riding in and had 
planned to intercept him before he reached the 
house. 

“ Why didn’t you lay out somewhere under 
cover till it was dark? ” he demanded. “ Any of 
the neighbors see you straddling my horse? ” 

“ A few of ’em, likely,” Bart returned. 
“ What if they did? I was half starved and got 
dead sick of waiting out there in the creek bot¬ 
toms.” 

Carver took him into the house and dressed the 
wounded shoulder. It proved to be a clean hole, 
the ball having passed through the fleshy parts 
without touching a bone. Bart spoke but seldom 
while the wound was being dressed. He seemed 


Tumbleweeds 199 

gloomy and morose, his usual carefree outlook 
entirely lacking for the time. 

“ It was the devil’s own luck, getting jumped 
just when I did,” he stated at last. 

“ Your bad luck set in prior to that,” Carver 
returned. “ It started when you met Noll and 
Milt.” 

Bart nodded, then suddenly gazed at Carver in 
surprise. 

“But how did you know I’d met them? ” he 
asked. “ I didn’t have time to tell you back 
there where we changed mounts.” 

“ It wasn’t hard to guess,” Carver said. 

“ Then you must know Noll better than I do, 
if you guessed that,” said Bart. “ I didn’t think 
the poison hound would shoot me down without a 
word.” 

“ What? ” Carver asked. “ Noll, you say! 
D’ you mean he shot you? ” 

“ No other,” Bart affirmed. “ The four of 
them rode up on me before I knew they were 
anywheres within fifty miles.” 

“ What four? ” Carver inquired. 

“ Milt, Noll and Freel,” Bart informed. “ I 
don’t know who the fourth was. Didn’t hear his 
voice. I was afoot and looking for my horse 
when they came riding along. I couldn’t see 
who they were but Noll was talking to Freel and 




200 


Tumbleweeds 


I knew their voices. They were riding in front. 
I asked ’em to raise another horse and save me a 
twenty-mile walk and they halted without a word 
at the sound of my voice. Then Noll shot. He 
cut down on me twice more after I hit the 
ground. One shot was close enough to fill my 
right ear full of sand. Milt jumped his horse 
against Noll’s, cussing him meanwhile, and they 
was off at a run before I could pick myself up.” 

Carver was conscious of a vague sense of relief 
coupled with knowledge of previous deductions 
gone astray. 

“ Where were you yesterday? ” he asked. 

“ Sleeping in the house you once owned in 
Caldwell, with my horse in the shed out behind,” 
Bart informed. “ It’s untenanted now so I 
entered by the simple process of breaking a win¬ 
dow. I recall that it had been a wild night in 
Caldwell and was near daylight when I went to 
bed. It was equally near dark when I waked. 
The festivities had palled on me and I was ready 
to go home so I rode out of town.” 

“But how did you happen to be way off to the 
south? ” Carver asked. 

Bart’s moroseness was dissipated by a grin, the 
scowl which had stamped his face vanishing be¬ 
fore the advent of some happy recollection. 

“ I had two pints in the saddle pockets for 


Tumbleweeds 201 

medicinal uses. After taking one of them it oc¬ 
curred to me what a nice thing it would be to sur¬ 
prise you by bridging down those yearlings of 
yours so I headed for Hinman’s west place. 
After taking the other I evidently dismounted 
thereabouts for a nap; and after napping I 
couldn’t locate my horse. I’d left the reins looped 
on the horn, likely, and he headed for home. 
While I was hunting round for him I heard folks 
riding toward me and angled to cut their trail 
and get help, like I told you. Instead I got shot. 
Then I rambled on afoot for a couple of miles 
and arrived at a house. Some one is making a 
late evening call and has left his horse tied out¬ 
side, so I borrowed the old wreck and headed 
toward home. I was feeling faint-like and weak, 
so I tied him up to a plum bush and slept. I 
made another start about daylight and then got 
off for a rest. It was then I see a dozen or so 
riders surging down on me. With half the 
county out on the hunt thataway it come to me 
that maybe my motives in borrowing the critter 
had been misunderstood so I made a break to 
escape.” 

Carver leaned back in his chair and laughed, 
swayed by a mixture of irritation and relief. 

“ Could you, by any off chance, prove that you 


202 Tumbleweeds 

were asleep in Caldwell yesterday and didn’t ride 
out till dark? ” he asked. 

“ Positively not,” Bart stated. “No one will 
ever know who entered that ex-house of yours by 
way of the window. My tracks are well covered.” 

“ Which is unfortunate in this particular in¬ 
stance,” Carver remarked. “ You’ve stepped 
into it up to the armpits. I had been wondering 
how to help you avoid serving ten years for some¬ 
thing you did. Now I’m wondering if you won’t 
get twenty years for something you didn’t. Did 
you happen to hear of the little event up in 
Wharton? ” 

“ I’ve heard of the place,” said Bart. “ But I 
thought it was against the rules for anything to 
ever happen there. What did? ” 

Carver told him and Bart nodded as he list¬ 
ened. The black frown once more stamped his 
face. 

“ And we know who it was,” Bart said. “ But 
I hope they don’t get caught. Noll might get 
sent up for twenty years — which span of time 
I’d find tedious waiting for him to get out again. 
I’d hate awfully to shoot him in the courtroom or 
through the bars. My fancy runs toward killing 
him somewheres outdoors, so I better get started 
before he’s apprehended.” 

Carver knew that Bart meant exactly what his 


Tumbleweeds 203 

statement intimated. The breach in the Lassiter 
family was now irreparable but its operation 
might prove to be even more detrimental to Bart 
than the influence which his half-brothers had 
exercised over him in the old days when they had 
all trailed together. 

“ You’re never clear of one mess before you’re 
into another,” Carver commented. “ Damn 
Noll! Forget him. Think what it would mean 
to Molly to have a shooting in the family.” 

“ There’s been one shooting in the family with¬ 
in the past few hours. She despises Noll and 
thinks considerable of me. Why should she feel 
worse about my shooting him than about his tak¬ 
ing that shot at me? ” Bart logically contended. 

“ Ask her,” Carver returned. “ I’ll send you 
home now before some of the boys roll in and 
start remarking broadcast about your being shot 
through the shoulder. I have to ride over to Oval 
Springs sometime soon and if you don’t keep that 
crippled shoulder under cover meantime, so’s the 
neighbors won’t get to speculating about your 
case, why I’ll up and jail you myself just to keep 
you out of trouble.” 

Bart faced him gravely. 

“ There’s not much in this life I wouldn’t do 
for you,” he said. “ I’d ride on into Washington 
and loot the Mint if you was needing pin money. 


204 Tumbleweeds 

If you had an enemy I’d assassinate him just to 
save you the trouble. You’ve used me white. 
But there’s some things that just have to be done. 
This here is one. I’m out to get Noll. He’s had 
it coming all his life. The day Noll passes out 
I’ll put myself under your orders and never stray 
outside my homestead fence for a solid year ex¬ 
cept when you say the word. I’ll give you a 
guarantee to that effect.” 

An hour after Bart’s departure Carver was 
saddling a fresh horse in the corral when a voice 
called to him from the edge of it. 

“ What’s the trouble, Honey? ” he inquired, 
resting his arms on the top bar of the corral gate 
and facing Molly Lassiter across it. 

“ Don! Don’t let Bart go out after Noll,” she 
said. “ Before I have time to thank you for 
helping him out this morning I’m asking you to 
do something else; ” she essayed a laugh which 
ended in a sob. “ But don’t let him do this. 
Can’t you think of some way? I never knew him 
to be in this mood before. He’s so quiet about it 
that I know he means to do it.” 

“ Likely it will wear off before morning,” Car¬ 
ver encouraged, but he knew that morning would 
find Bart in the selfsame mood. Only years 
would suffice to alter the determination he had 


T umbleweeds 205 

• 

read in Bart’s face an hour past. “ He’ll forget 
it in a day or two.” 

He spoke unconcernedly to reassure the girl 
for she was nearer the breaking point than he had 
ever seen her. Her habitual self-control had 
broken down. 

“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. 
“But I can’t have that — a shooting between 
brothers — don’t you see? Not that Noll really 
is a brother; but people will always think of it 
that way. I wish something had happened to 
Noll before I ever saw him — just for what he’s 
done to Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to 
wish him dead; he should be; he’s not fit to live. 
But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it 
down.” 

She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched 
and unnatural. Carver vaulted the corral bars 
and laid an arm about her shoulders. 

“ Sho! That’ll all pass off,” he said easily. 
“ Bart wouldn’t — not after he’d thought it over. 
He’s excited about it now.” 

She knew that he spoke only to quiet her fears, 
that he himself lacked the convictions which he 
expressed. 

“ He’s not excited,” she insisted. “ He’s 
thought it all over now and made his decision. 
Oh, anything but that. It’s the one worst thing I 


2o6 Tumbleweeds 

can think of. There must be some way. Hon¬ 
estly, Don, I couldn’t stand that after all the 
other things the name of Lassiter has been linked 
with.” 

“ Then we’ll put a stop to it,” he said. “ We’ll 
just fix it so he can’t.” 

She noted the change in his voice. He was no 
longer speaking merely to reassure her. This 
knowledge exerted a quieting effect. She some¬ 
way had vast confidence that Carver would find a 
way out. Bart’s quiet insistence had terrified her 
but Carver had thought of some means to dis¬ 
suade him. 

“I’ll be riding on into Oval Springs now,” he 
said. “ Meantime you put your mind at ease.” 
He drew her to him and when she made a motion 
of dissent he gave her shoulders a little shake. 
“ Right now,” he insisted a trifle roughly, and she 
lifted her face to him. 

“ You promise you won’t let him? ” she im¬ 
plored. 

He stood looking down at her with a queer 
little smile. 

“ Rest easy,” he said. “ I’ll take a contract to 
that effect.” 

He dropped the corral bars and a moment 
later she watched him ride off through the night 
toward Oval Springs. 


XI 


The atmosphere of Oval Springs reeked of 
new lumber and fresh paint. A dozen business 
buildings were being hastily constructed and new 
houses were started daily in the residence district 
of the town. 

Carver strolled down the main street. Shafts 
of light, emanating from store fronts, splashed 
across the board sidewalk and relieved the gloom 
of the street. Scores of horses stood at the hitch 
rails. The blare of a mechanical piano sounded 
from an open doorway, accompanied by the 
scrape of boots and clank of spurs. The shrill 
laughter of a dance-hall girl rose momentarily 
above the din. From another door there issued 
the clinking of glassware at the’bar and drunken 
voices raised in song; the smooth purr of the 
roulette wheel and the professional drone of look¬ 
out and croupier. The new county seat was a 
wide-open town. 

Carver visited one place after another in search 
of Noll Lassiter. He discovered him in a saloon 
near the end of the street but the man he sought 
was in the center of a group near the bar. Car- 


208 Tumbleweeds 

ver nodded but did not join them. What he had 
to say to Noil must be imparted when there were 
no others to hear. 

Noll was discoursing at some length to his com¬ 
panions and at the sight of Carver he raised his 
voice with palpable intent to include Carver in 
the circle of his hearers, — wherefore Carver 
listened. 

“ They hadn’t no business to throw me in,” 
Noll stated aggrievedly. “ I ask you now! Of 
course Crowfoot and Alf Wellman never was any 
special friends of mine but they had no call to 
lock me up.” 

“ This may prove worth while. He’s anxious 
to have me get it,” Carver decided, and as the 
case was restated he gathered the cause of Noll’s 
grievance. 

Two days before, in mid-afternoon, the two 
Lassiters had become openly conspicuous and 
Noil had indulged in target practice in the street, 
whereupon Crowfoot, acting town marshal, had 
declared that such sports were out of season dur¬ 
ing the daylight hours and with the help of the 
sheriff had conducted the two Lassiters to the 
county jail — that structure serving also as a city 
prison — where they had languished till noon of 
the present day. Their urgent representations, 
delivered verbally to acquaintances who had 



Tumbleweeds 209 

chanced to pass the jail during the morning, had 
resulted in their release at noon. 

“ The alibi club is in session,” Carver told him¬ 
self. “ It’s real accomodating of Noll to stage a 
monologue just to deceive me. It’s cleared up 
some points I was hazy on. The town marshal, 
the sheriff and his deputies are still trailing with 
the old crowd. It works out like this: Wellman 
and Crowfoot jail the two Lassiters in view of the 
populace. After nightfall the two prisoners de¬ 
part by the back stairs and make a hard ride to 
some point near Wharton, hole up there till 
afternoon and raid the bank, hide out again till 
after dark and make another hard ride back to 
Oval Springs. They’re safe in jail before dawn. 
This morning they comment through the bars to 
pedestrians passing the jail. A perfect alibi—- 
unless Noll overacts his part and talks himself 
into trouble.” 

He mused further on the subject as he waited 
for Noll to detach himself from the group. 

“ This deal signifies that every man round the 
sheriff’s office is cutting in with the boys,” he 
reflected. “ Wellman has appointed the two 
Ralston brothers deputies in addition to Freel. 
The fourth party in that Wharton hold-up was 
likely one of the Ralston boys.” 

Noll eventually moved toward the door but 


210 Tumbleweeds 

the others accompanied him. Carver followed 
them out and called to Noll. 

“ Just a minute,” he said. “ I have a bit of 
news to impart.” 

Noll turned back and stood facing him while 
the others halted a few feet away. Carver low¬ 
ered his voice so his words would not reach them. 

“ You’ve tried for me twice,” he said. “ From 
now on it’s reversed.” 

“ What d’ you mean? ” Noll demanded. 

“ That I’m going into action the next time you 
loom up anywhere within range,” Carver stated. 
“ I’m just telling you so that you’ll know how to 
act the next time we meet. Right soon after we 
next sight each other there’ll be one of us absent 
from human affairs.” 

The group on the sidewalk saw nothing un¬ 
usual in this interview, — merely a low-voiced 
conversation between two acquaintances. 

“ Absent! ” Noll repeated. “ That one will be 
you! ” 

“ Maybe,” Carver assented and turned off up 
the street. 

He spent the night at the hotel and in the 
morning sought the deputy United States mar¬ 
shal whose posse guarded against the destruction 
of railroad property and the consequent inter- 


Tumbleweeds 211 

ference with the delivery of the United States’ 
mail. 

“ You helped me into this job,” Mattison 
greeted. “ Now it’s up to you to help me hold it. 
You’re to be my right-hand assistant until this 
mess is cleared up. Did you know it? ” 

“ Not for sure,” Carver said. “ But I sus¬ 
pected it somewhat when you sent over for me. 
I’ll make a deal with you. You can deputize me 
now till we iron out this fuss, provided that some 
future time you agree to let me deputize myself 
on some occasion when I may have to go into 
action right rapid and you not at hand; when 
it’s a case where county officers wouldn’t fit in 
and a deputy marshal would. I’d proclaim that 
I was acting under orders from you, meantime 
having dispatched word for you to make haste 
toward the spot. You arrive and assume com¬ 
mand.” 

“ What ’ve you got in mind? ” Mattison in¬ 
quired a bit doubtfully. 

“Not anything special,” Carver returned. “ I 
may never avail myself of my end of the bargain. 
If ever I do I’ll guarantee that the parties I 
move on will be eligible to arrest for shattering 
some Federal law and I’ll be able to prove it. 
That will let you out.” 

“ Yes. Likely it will let'me out of my job,” 


212 


Tumbleweeds 


Mattison said. “ But you’re responsible for my 
getting it and I oughtn’t to object if you should 
also be responsible for my losing it. We’ll close 
the deal.” 

“ One more small favor before you put me to 
work,” Carver requested. “ I wish you’d pass 
out the word, quiet like, among the boys that the 
first time Bart Lassiter shows up here he’s to be 
arrested and sent up to Caldwell.” 

“ What have you got against Bart,” Mattison 
asked. “ I thought you was friends.” 

“ That’s why I want him tossed into jail and 
kept out of trouble till I give the word to free 
him again.” 

“ All right. We’ll toss him if he shows up in 
town,” Mattison agreed. “ Let’s head for the 
tracks and I’ll explain your job as we travel.” 

For the next three nights Carver patrolled the 
railroad tracks for a distance of over a mile north 
of town, visiting the six men stationed in couples 
at intervals throughout that stretch. Mattison 
conducted a similar patrol to the south. 
Throughout that period no move had been made 
to tear up the tracks. Trains rolled through 
without a halt and no incident transpired which 
would furnish the least surface indication of the 
existence of a bitter feud. But both Carver and 
Mattison knew that the undercurrent of lawless- 


Tumbleweeds 213 

ness had not subsided; that it merely smoldered, 
waiting an opportunity to break forth. 

During the past month there had been five men 
killed and as many wounded in the progress of 
the county-seat war. Three of the slain had been 
members of the marshal’s posse, for Mattison’s 
operations were handicapped by red tape, his 
instructions prohibiting the firing of a shot ex¬ 
cept in case his own men were attacked. The 
participants on the reverse side of the question 
were burdened by no such restrictions. The 
marshal was unable to gather a single shred of 
information as to the identity of the men con¬ 
cerned in any one of the wrecking parties. The 
population of Oval Springs was solidly in favor 
of any move whatsoever, if only it should result 
in the stopping of trains at that point. 

In mid-afternoon of the fourth day Carver sat 
cross-legged on the ground in the marshal’s camp 
beside the tracks a few hundred yards north of 
town. He leaned back against a bed roll and in¬ 
spected the general surroundings through half- 
closed eyes. There was the usual congestion 
round the three town wells which furnished the 
only supply of water for the county seat. Tank 
wagons plied between these wells and the sur¬ 
rounding country, supplying settlers with mois¬ 
ture at fifty cents a barrel. Carver straightened, 


Tumbleweeds 


214 

suddenly alert, as a rider dropped from his horse 
at the end of the street. His left arm was bound 
stiffly at his side. 

“ Bart couldn’t wait for that shoulder to cure 
before he started hunting for Noll,” Carver said. 
He noted that two men had stepped in behind 
Bart. They were Mattison’s men and Bart had 
not progressed a distance of fifty yards from his 
horse before he was under arrest. 

“ That much accomplished,” Carver said. 
“ Bart’s safe out of the way as soon as they get 
him to Caldwell. Now it’s narrowed down to 
Noll and myself. I don’t care overmuch for my 
job but she’d rather it would be me than Bart to 
go through with it — some one outside the fam¬ 
ily; and this will rule me outside for all time.” 

Bradshaw rode into camp and joined Carver, 
leaving his mount with several other saddled 
horses that grazed close at hand. Mattison’s 
posse, down to the last man, was composed of old 
friends of Carver’s, former riders of the Strip. 
Their old calling gone, they now gravitated to 
any point which promised to afford a touch of 
excitement. 

“They’ve let us alone for quite a spell now,” 

Bradshaw said. “ Time something was break- 

• _ >> 

mg. 

ft 

A stiff wind screeched across the country and 


Tumbleweeds 215 

the two men sought shelter behind a pile of baled 
hay, sprawling comfortably in the sun until 
Mattison located them there and reported a bit 
of news. 

“ Headquarters has thrown off the bridle and 
issued orders to shoot down every man that 
tampers with the tracks,” he informed. “ I just 
got the word. Now that we’ve got free rein we’ll 
clean up this mess.” 

These instructions were passed out to all of the 
marshal’s men. Two hours after midnight 
Carver stood on the tracks with Mattison. 

Both men turned to view a vague light that 
seemed to flicker up from near a string of build¬ 
ings at one end of the main street. The high 
wind which had prevailed throughout the day 
had died down within the past hour and in the 
resulting hush sounds could be heard at a con¬ 
siderable distance. The light increased and shed 
a pinkish glow over a portion of the sleeping 
town. A similar light, smaller and less evident, 
as if but a reflection of the other, appeared near 
the courthouse at the far end of the town. From 
somewhere there sounded the muffled thud of 
many hoofs. 

“ I wonder now,” Carver said, as he caught 
this sound. 44 An hour ago, before the wind went 
down, a fire would have wiped Oval Springs off 


2 i6 Tumbleweeds 

the map — no water.’’ He listened again to the 
rumble of hoofs. ‘'It’s come,” he announced. 
“ Casa has been in a ferment for weeks, threat¬ 
ening to ride over and sack Oval Springs. Now 
they’re at it.” 

Black smoke rolled above the pink glow which 
was rapidly swelling into a lurid glare. Tongues 
of scarlet flame now leaped above the buildings 
as the fire, started in the rear of them, licked 
hungrily up the back of the frame structures. 
There was a sudden clamor of voices as sleeping 
citizens were roused by the glare of the fire, then 
a roar of hoofs as forty horsemen thundered the 
length of the main street and emptied their guns 
at the store fronts. They wheeled and rode back 
through the street, shooting as they came, this 
last demonstration for the purpose of keeping 
citizens within doors until the flames had attained 
sufficient headway to spread beyond control. 

The rumble of hoofs died out as the raiders 
pounded away toward the north and the popula¬ 
tion of Oval Springs boiled out to check the 
spread of the fire. 

“ It’s no affair of ours,” Mattison said. “ Dog 
eat dog. Let ’em go. Wellman, our good 
sheriff, hasn’t exerted himself to help find out 
who’s been shooting my boys at night. Let him 
handle this deal himself.” 


Tumbleweeds 217 

The Casa raiders had planned well and if the 
wind had held Oval Springs would have been re¬ 
duced to ashes in an hour. But the fates had 
intervened. The wind had slacked off, then died, 
and now a reverse wind blew up and piled the 
flames back upon themselves. The fire at the 
courthouse had not attained sufficient headway 
and a determined body of citizens checked the 
spread of the flames. The blaze at the north end 
of town was confined to the one section in which 
it started, the strong wind from the south beating 
back the flames which leaped high above the 
buildings. Men on adjacent structures stamped 
out the sparks which were belched far and wide 
as each burning roof sagged and fell with a 
hissing roar. 

The conflagration lasted till dawn, was still 
smoldering when Carver retired to the bed tent 
where he slumbered till high noon. An hour 
after rising he sauntered along the tracks to the 
north for the purpose of chatting for an hour 
with Bradshaw, who was stationed within a short 
distance of camp. His friend was nowhere in 
sight. 

“ The sun’s nice and warm,” Carver said. “I’ll 
find Brad napping on the sunny slope of the 
grade.” 

A bare flat extended for four hundred yards 


218 Tumbleweeds 

on the east side of the tracks. Beyond it the 
country was broken and rolling, studded with 
dwarf brush and scattered thickets of scrub oak. 
Carver located Bradshaw reclining on the west 
slope of the railroad embankment in the sun, his 
hat pulled over his eyes. When within a few feet 
of Bradshaw’s position Carver flinched con¬ 
vulsively as a rifle ball snapped past within a 
foot of his head. The thin crack of a rifle accom¬ 
panied the sound and a faint spurt of blue smoke 
drifted hazily from a black-jack clump on the 
far edge of the flat. Carver cleared the edge of 
the grade at a bound. 

No matter what else might occupy Carver’s 
mind, the thought of Noll Lassiter was ever in 
the foreground of his consciousness, would re¬ 
main there until the matter between them was 
settled, and he knew without question who had 
fired the shot from the black-jacks. 

“ Close shooting for four hundred yards. 
That didn’t miss me an inch,” Carver said. “ Get 
down! ” he called sharply; for Bradshaw, thirty 
feet farther north, had been roused by the sound 
of the shot and Carver’s plunge down the shel¬ 
tered side of the grade, and he had risen to his 
knees to peer off to the east. “Down, Brad! 
Duck under the bank! ” 

The warning command came too late. Brad- 


Tumbleweeds 219 

shaw sprawled on his face and slid loosely down 
the embankment as the rifle spoke again from 
the thicket. Carver ran to his friend but Brad¬ 
shaw was beyond need of assistance. He opened 
his eyes with an effort as Carver knelt over him. 

“ I’m sorry, Brad,” Carver said. “ He was 
out after me and got you instead when you raised 
up in sight. I’m sorry, old man.” 

Bradshaw essayed a smile and made a feeble 
move to extend a hand for a farewell shake with 
his friend. 

“ It’s all right,” he said — and passed out. 

Carver ran back toward the camp, keeping 
under cover of the embankment. Several men 
had heard the two shots and had mounted the 
tracks to determine their source. They saw 
Carver running toward camp and knew that the 
two stray reports had carried at least some sig¬ 
nificance. 

“ What’s up? ” one man called as Carver came 
within hailing distance. 

He did not answer till after reaching the spot 
where a half-dozen saddled horses were grazing 
just outside camp, his own mount among them. 
He slowed to a walk lest he stampede the horses 
by a too precipitate approach. Mattison had 
come from the bed tent. Carver jerked a thumb 
back in the direction from which he had come. 


220 


Tumbleweeds 


“ Some one downed Brad from the bush out 
across the flat,” Carver informed. “I’m going 
out to bring in the party that did it.” 

The marshal turned to the men standing 
round. 

“Saddles!” he ordered. “On your horses! 
Go bring him in! ” 

But Carver lifted a hand. 

“ This is my job,” he said. “ I want him 
myself. He was trying for me — and Brad’s 
been my friend for fifteen years. Hold ’em 
back! ” he insisted, as the men headed for their 
horses. He swung to the saddle. “ Send up 
word to let Bart Lassiter out,” he called back, as 
he jumped his horse toward the tracks. 

Mattison countermanded his previous order 
and the other men stayed in camp, cursing fret¬ 
fully over this sudden turn in affairs which pre¬ 
vented their going. 

Carver rode without caution, knowing that 
Noll would have departed immediately after 
firing the shots. The man would have a mile 
lead by now. The country to the southeast was 
a stretch of good land, solidly settled and thor¬ 
oughly fenced. A rider heading that way would 
find his route confined to fenced section lines. 
Noll would head northeast where the country 
was rough and mostly unfenced. Carver lined 


Tumbleweeds 221 

his horse out at a run and after two miles he 
sighted his man, off to the left and a half-mile 
ahead. 

When he saw him again the distance between 
them had lessened. Noll would hold on without 
stopping till he discovered the fact that a man 
followed him. Even then he would hesitate to 
dismount and attempt to bushwhack his hunter 
through fear that Mattison had turned the whole 
posse loose on his trail. Another half-mile and 
Carver glimpsed him again, this time less than 
four hundred yards in the lead. They passed out 
of the brush-covered area into a country that, 
while still rough, was covered only with coarse 
grass. It occurred to Carver that another few 
miles would bring them out into a good-land dis¬ 
trict, settled and fenced. Noll would never be 
crowded out into that section if he knew Carver 
followed, for he would be forced to travel along 
fenced roadways and settlers would witness his 
flight, establishing his identity. 

As Carver crossed over a ridge he saw Noll 
again, only his head and shoulders visible as he 
rode straight away a scant two hundred yards 
ahead. Apparently he had no suspicion that 
there was a man on his trail, yet it seemed certain 
that before now he would have halted under 
cover of some ridge to scan his back track and 


222 Tumbleweeds 

ascertain if he were followed. If he discovered 
a rider behind him he would halt again at some 
other point to determine if others rode with the 
first. 

It suddenly occurred to Carver that the swift 
lessening of distance between them was occa¬ 
sioned by this very thing. Noll had stopped 
under cover to view his back track; had halted 
again to make sure that but one man followed his 
trail. Even as this thought flashed into his mind 
Carver flung from the saddle and dropped flat on 
the ground. 

He had ridden the length of a shallow draw 
and he left it only to discover that the landscape 
had flattened out into low waves of ground. It 
was the sight of the upper half of a riderless 
horse standing in the shallow depression beyond 
one of these waves which had occasioned his sud¬ 
den fling from the saddle. Noll had dismounted 
in the next dip ahead, intending to shoot as 
Carver rode into sight. 

Carver lay flat on his face and crawled thirty 
feet to the north through the shallow basin that 
sheltered him, then lifted his head cautiously and 
inspected his surroundings. His range was lim¬ 
ited to a distance of fifty yards north and south. 
He might crawl back west for some twenty 
yards. The character of his surroundings ren- 


Tumbleweeds 223 

dered it impossible for him to move beyond this 
restricted area without showing himself to the 
man who was cached in a similar depression 
somewhere less than seventy yards east of him. 
And in all the shallow dip there was not one 
point of sufficient depth to permit of his straight¬ 
ening up on his knees without danger of bringing 
his head into view of the man who waited for him 
over across. 

Inch by inch, Carver worked his way toward a 
spot where a few straggling stems of tall grass 
were scattered about. Poor cover this, yet even a 
few spears of grass break up the view to a surpris¬ 
ing extent when one is prone on the ground. In 
thirty minutes he had covered as many feet. He 
removed his hat and elevated his head. 

First he studied the character of Noll’s re¬ 
treat, — a depression similar to the one which 
afforded him shelter, a trifle deeper perhaps and 
of slightly greater area. But Noll could not 
progress a hundred yards in any direction with¬ 
out coming into his view. Carver knew that 
somewhere over there Noll was watching for the 
first glimpse of him. He could see the empty 
scabbard on Lassiter’s saddle and knew that he 
was armed with a rifle. His own rifle remained 
on the saddle of the horse he could not reach 



Tumbleweeds 


224 

without showing himself to Noll and he was 
armed only with the gun on his belt. 

“ He’s got me handicapped a trifle on location 
and weapons,” Carver reflected. “ It’ll narrow 
down now to which one has the other out-guessed 
for patience. What happened to Brad has put 
me in the humor to go through with my job.” 

There was no breath of wind and the sun 
glared down into the depression with summerlike 
warmth. Carver crawled back to the lowest point 
in his basin and divested himself of his jacket. 
An old brake block, dropped from some chuck 
wagon in the old days of the round-up, was 
grown half over with grass. He pried the block 
from its resting place and regarded it, then set to 
work, first draping his jacket the length of the 
twenty-inch slab of wood and observing the 
effect from one side. Then he padded one shoul¬ 
der with matted dead grass. His knife, its point 
stabbed solidly into one edge of the block, served 
as a handle. He crawled north through the de¬ 
pression, one arm extended, his hand clasping the 
knife and holding the contraption two feet be¬ 
fore him and elevated to a point some ten inches 
higher than his own head as he lay flat on the 
ground. He progressed slowly, squirming for¬ 
ward a few inches at a time, wondering mean¬ 
while if any one peering through the grass from 


Tumbleweeds 225 

a short distance away would mistake it for the 
flat of a man’s back and the hump of his shoul¬ 
ders. He covered ten feet; fifteen. When one 
peered through the grass from a prone position 
the view was none too distinct at best. He 
hitched forward another two feet. Surely he 
was holding the decoy sufficiently high to bring 
it into Noll’s range of vision. Another hitch of 
two feet, and suddenly his wrist was jarred by the 
sharp sidewise wrench of the knife as a rifle shot 
crashed forth from sixty yards to the eastward 
and the heavy ball tore through the jacket and 
the block across which it was draped. Carver 
emitted a single coughing gasp. A split-second 
later he flung one arm aloft, the fingers out¬ 
stretched, closing them tightly as the hand was 
withdrawn. Then he turned back and crawled 
to his first point of vantage where the scattering 
stems of coarse grass would tend to break up the 
view. 

An hour passed without a sound save the 
stamp of a hoof or the creak of leather as the two 
horses moved about a few yards away. A huge 
black buzzard wheeled high overhead. His 
spirals narrowed and a second vulture joined 
him. The two great birds soared on motionless 
wings a half-mile above the two quiet figures 
sprawled in the grass a stone’s throw apart, each 


22 6 


Tumbleweeds 


invisible to the other but quite visible to the car¬ 
rion birds that hovered over the spot. Carver 
longed for a smoke. The craving for a cigarette 
became almost irresistible and in order to combat 
this urge he forced himself to speculate as to 
the sensations of the man in the opposite dip in 
the ground. He concentrated on this line of 
thought until the study assumed actual interest. 

Noll, being uncertain on several points, would 
soon become restless, Carver reflected. He was 
half-convinced that Carver was dead. His 
thoughts would constantly revert to that cough¬ 
ing gasp that had followed his shot, that up-flung 
arm with the fingers clutching spasmodically at 
nothing. Carver had no such uncertainty to dis¬ 
turb him and congratulated himself upon this 
fact. Point by point he compared his own plight 
with that of the enemy. s 

Time was passing,—time which meant nothing 
to him and meant much to Lassiter. Noll must 
be wondering if any others of Mattison’s men 
had set forth on his trail. Perhaps they were 
working it out bit by bit and were even now near¬ 
ing the spot.* A dozen other contingencies might 
arise:.*. A stray horseman might sight the two 
riderless horses and set forth to discover the 
reason/ Carver had nothing to lose by discovery. 
He would profit from such intervention instead, 


Tumbleweeds 227 

but the injection of any such chance element 
would seal Lassiter’s doom. By thus dwelling 
upon Noll’s discomforts Carver was able to par¬ 
tially assuage his own, — all save that gnawing 
desire for a smoke. Another hour had passed. 
Then Carver’s mind snapped back from abstract 
imaginings to the world of realities. 

A tuft of grass over across twitched sharply. 
It jerked again and Carver slid his gun out be¬ 
fore him to the length of his arm. For a space 
of five minutes there was no other move and 
Carver relaxed, that insane urge to have a smoke 
at all costs mounting again. A bird hopped close 
to inspect him, its bright little eyes fixed on his 
own as it turned its head from side to side for a 
better view of him. The peak of a hat appeared 
above the grass tops sixty yards to the east. 
More of the hat was lifted slowly into view until 
the whole crown was visible. Carver pictured 
Noll’s eyes just beneath it, peering from under 
the brim. 

But of course the thing was a plant. Noll 
would not lift his head with eight inches of hat 
above it to announce his position. He was rais¬ 
ing the hat into sight with a stick to lure Carver 
into firing as Carver had decoyed him with the 
coat. Carver restrained the desire to shoot 
through the grass tops four inches below the 


228 Tumbleweeds 

crown of the hat. The thing disappeared only 
to come into view once more at a point some ten 
feet from the first. Again the move was repeated 
and this time the hat was thrust up abruptly 
as if its wearer could no longer exercise sufficient 
restraint to elevate it an inch at a time. Noll was 
becoming nervous, breaking under the strain. 
On the fourth event Carver saw a clear space 
between the grass and the hat. It dropped back 
but the crown remained in his range of view and 
for a space of ten minutes he kept his eyes on 
that dark spot in the grass. 

A movement ten vards to the left of it chal- 
lenged his attention. A second dark blot 
showed in the brown of the grass. It moved up¬ 
ward a fraction, the top of a head. Carver noted 
the slight sidewise motion as the man shifted for 
a better view. His gun hand contracted as he 
lined down the barrel but he loosened his fingers 
again. It would not do to shoot until he was 
sure, leaving him in the same state of uncertainty 
which now handicapped Noll. The sun was 
swinging low in the west. Another two hours 
and it would be too dark to see. If Noll could 
hold out until then he could make a clean get¬ 
away. If Carver gave a sign too soon Noll would 
know that his shot of two hours past had failed to 
locate its mark and he would stay under cover till 


Tumbleweeds 229 

nightfall and then make a run for it. It was the 
uncertainty that was breaking him down. Noll 
couldn’t go against another two hours of that 
sort of thing, Carver told himself. 

He repeated this assurance a score of times 
after the head disappeared. Two hours of un¬ 
certainty for Lassiter — two hours of craving 
for just one cigarette for himself — which would 
win out? He composed himself for another long 
wait. 

Then Noll’s head and shoulders appeared as he 
rose to his knees, only to be as quickly withdrawn 
from view as he dropped once more on his face. 
His voice rose from the opposite depression, 
hoarse and unsteady as he reviled Carver, hop¬ 
ing to taunt him into some answer, — the first 
sound of a voice in nearly three hours. There 
came a crashing report from the dip and Carver’s 
horse went down in a heap, shot through the 
shoulders. The animal screamed once as it 
struggled on the ground. A spurt of blue smoke 
revealed the rifleman’s position but Carver knew 
that he was well below the danger line. The 
horse ceased struggling. A bubbling rattle an¬ 
nounced the death of his favorite mount. The 
voice of the man who had fired the wanton shot 
rose with the sound. 

“ How do you like the sound of that? ” he de- 



230 Tumbleweeds 

manded. “ That’s what will happen to you be- 
tween now and dark.” 

He leaped to his feet and stood facing Carver, 
then dropped back out of sight. 

“ He’s going to pieces,” Carver told himself. 
“ He’ll make a break now most any time.” 

The exertion and relief from inaction appar¬ 
ently had lessened the strain under which Noll 
had been laboring and he made no other move for 
many long weary minutes. Then, without warn¬ 
ing, he was up and running toward Carver’s po¬ 
sition, his rifle half raised before him. He was 
within forty yards; thirty. Then Carver lifted 
his forearm and fired. Lassiter tottered drunk- 
enly and shot into the haze of smoke that floated 
before Carver’s gun. The ball plowed a furrow 
three inches from Carver’s ear and spattered 
fresh earth in his face. Carver shot twice again. 
For a space of twenty seconds he held his place 
in the grass, then sat up on his heels and twisted 
a cigarette. 


XII 


Molly Lassiter followed her usual daily 
routine, visiting back and forth with the Crans- 
tons, Lees and other neighbors, yet beneath it all 
she was conscious of a certain uneasy expectancy, 
a sense of waiting for something to transpire. 
There had been no word from Bart and his 
whereabouts were unknown to her. Somewhere 
Bart was making a relentless hunt for Noll and 
she expected hourly to hear news of their meet¬ 
ing. She knew of Carver’s having joined the 
marshal’s posse at Oval Springs and there was 
ever the possibility that she would get word that 
he had fallen in the county-seat war. She had 
once told Carver that it was the woman’s portion 
to wait for bad news, — and now she was wait¬ 
ing. In another three weeks her school would 
open for the mid-winter term. A few days past 
her interest had centered entirely on this great 
event but now she found it had been relegated 
to a position of secondary importance in her 
mind; would retain its minor significance until 
such time as both Bart and Carver were safe 
home once more. 



232 Tumbleweeds 

Then a sympathetic grub-liner dropped past 
with the word that Noll had been killed in the 
county-seat fight. The bearer of the tidings, in 
an awkward effort to lessen the shock of what he 
must impart, prefaced his announcement with a 
rambling admonition to prepare herself for the 
worst, and she was ready to shriek out to him to 
hasten on to the point of his message. She found 
time to wonder at the fact that her chief concern 
was a terrible dread that something had hap¬ 
pened to Carver. Then, at last, the man halt¬ 
ingly explained that Noll had passed out of this 
world, one more victim of the countv-seat feud. 

Her reaction was so intense that she dropped 
to a seat on the doorsill and stared mutely at her 
informer. The man rode away cursing him¬ 
self for breaking the news so abruptly. After his 
departure she accused herself of great wicked¬ 
ness for the reason that she could not wring one 
atom of regret from the fact of Noll’s passing. 
Rather, after the fear for both Carver and Bart 
which had been roused by the man’s lengthy 
preamble, she had experienced a positive relief 
to find that the news concerned Noll. She hoped 
that the man had not divined this, and again she 
accused herself of a callousness which she had 
never before suspected as a part of her make-up. 

She had known that it was only a question of 


Tumbleweeds 233 

time until Noll would come to his end during 
some piece of outlawry, a bank hold-up or some 
brawl in town, and it was infinitely preferable 
that it should have happened in this way instead, 
— as the victim of the county-seat war in which 
good men had gone down on both sides. It elimi¬ 
nated the certainty of a fratricidal shooting be¬ 
tween Noll and Bart in the very near future. It 
was better this way. 

The following day Bart rode up the lane and 
within an hour after his arrival he had started 
upon the construction of the three-room house 
which he had planned a month or more back. 
She observed that Bart, notwithstanding the 
wounded shoulder which still bothered him 
slightly, went about his work with a purposeful¬ 
ness which had not characterized his activities in 
the past. A week had passed without his having 
shown any evidence of restlessness or desire to 
ride into town. 

Now that she had Bart safe at home it seemed 
that her anxiety should have been decreased by 
more than half but instead it was augmented by 
each bit of news pertaining to the intensity of the 
trouble round Oval Springs. Another week 
passed without the least lessening of Bart’s daily 
labors. The house was completed with the help 
of a few grub-liners who were stopping at 


Tumbleweeds 


234 

Carver’s to look after his affairs during his ab¬ 
sence. 

They moved into the new house and Molly’s 
spirits soared. She sang light-heartedly as she 
went about her work. She had a permanent 
home of her own and Bart’s tendency to roam 
was becoming less pronounced. There was no 
longer reason to dread the consequences of any 
possible rambles he might take in the future, 
since Noll’s influence was now a thing of the 
past. Her new school would soon open; and be¬ 
sides all these things Molly had made a discovery 
which eclipsed all the rest. She had told Carver 
that she did not feel quite up to having a third 
tumbleweed on her hands to worry about, already 
having had two, her father and Bart, but she had 
found herself worrying every minute since his de¬ 
parture ; and since it seemed that she was to have 
the worry in any event, she had as well have her 
tumbleweed too. She knew that fact now and 
she wanted to tell him. It was to be expected 
that Bart would feel the need of relaxation after 
completing the house and she had decided that 
when these symptoms became manifest she would 
suggest Oval Springs as his destination and send 
a message to Carver. She had thought much 
over the substance and wording of the message. 
She would send merely the word that she was 


Tumbleweeds 


235 

worrying over his connection with the marshal’s 
posse. Carver would divine what lay behind the 
words and return to the ranch, she reflected; he 
understood her so thoroughly. 

Bart, however, failed to fulfill his part in her 
plans. 

“You needn’t worry about my prowling off 
somewheres,” he informed her one morning at 
breakfast. “ I’m one tumbleweed that’s quit 
roaming. There’s been a windbreak erected on 
all four sides of me that’ll restrain me from 
drifting for one solid year. When I make a con¬ 
tract I keep it — even if it only came about 
through a mistake in the wording.” 

She pondered over this assertion while Bart 
finished his breakfast. 

“ Carver tricked me, sort of,” Bart amplified. 
“ He couldn’t dissuade me from setting out after 
Noll, but I made a rash statement that I’d stay 
here on the place for one year from the day 
Noll’s case was settled, having in mind, of course, 
that I’d do the settling myself but neglecting to 
state it that way. Well, Noll’s case is settled, 
though not just the way I’d planned it, and here 
I am. No more trips to town until Don says the 
word.” 

“ I’m glad, Bart,” Molly said. “ It’s so much 



Tumbleweeds 


236 

better this way instead of your being mixed up 
with it yourself. Don’t you see? ” 

He pushed back his chair and regarded her. 

“ I’ll never be convinced but what I’d ought 
to have done it myself,” Bart insisted. “ I would 
have too, if you hadn’t talked Don into beating 
me to it. He knew you’d rather it would be him 
than me.” 

Bart rose and moved about the room, com¬ 
menting upon certain angles of the case and from 
these fragments she was able to piece out the 
whole picture. Bart spoke casually, believing 
that she had already become acquainted with 
every phase of the affair. The girl sat very still, 
her hands clenched in her lap. So it had been 
Carver. She had never given that a thought 
until now, had not entertained even a suspicion 
of the truth, and Bart was assuming that she 
knew every detail; that she was responsible for 
having sent Carver. An hour past she had told 
herself that Don understood her so well while in 
reality he understood her so little that he had 
imagined she was sending him forth on such a 
mission as that. 

“ But why in God’s name didn’t he let the 
posse go out instead of going alone? ” she asked 
at last. 

“ That’s just what he couldn’t do,” Bart dis- 


Tumbleweeds 237 

sented. “ He knew that it was on account of his 
own personal disagreement with Noll that Brad¬ 
shaw had been shot down, that it didn’t have any 
relation to the county-seat squabble whatever. 
If the marshal’s boys had gone boiling across into 
the brush after Noil there was a good chance that 
some other good men would go the same route 
that Brad had. Don couldn’t chance that. It 
was his own personal trouble and he felt obliged 
to take all the risks on himself.” 

She knew that Carver’s action, judged by the 
standards of his kind, would command respect. 
But if only he had been content to stand back 
and let the marshal’s men go out as a whole! It 
would then have seemed an impersonal sort of 
affair instead of becoming openly known as a 
personal issue between the two men. Even 
though she herself had always refused to look 
upon Noll as a relative the world at large would 
not hold that view. Centuries of custom decreed 
that such an occurrence as this should operate as 
an insurmountable barrier between Don and her¬ 
self. There would always be that between them. 
Tongues would wag until the end of time if they 
should violate that age-old tradition by permit¬ 
ting any relationship deeper than mere acquaint¬ 
ance between them. She must see Don and 
explain it all to him. He had made such an 


238 Tumbleweeds 

unalterable mistake; had understood her so little. 
But she could not see him till after the trouble at 
Oval Springs had been settled and he returned 
to the ranch. 

Even at that moment the county-seat war was 
nearing an abrupt termination. Oval Springs 
had grown with amazing rapidity and there was 
no longer an object in the refusal of the railroad 
company to halt its trains at that point, the re¬ 
verse now being true. 

Carver watched the south-bound passenger 
train come to a halt for the first time in weeks. 
The assembled population of Oval Springs 
cheered this unexpected event. A group of 
officials descended to look over the ground and 
one man announced to the crowd that they had 
come to select a site for the new station, construc¬ 
tion of which was to begin on the morrow. Sur¬ 
veyors were unloading equipment. A work train 
crawled into town and a hundred men swarmed 
off the cars to begin work on a switch track. The 
feud was ended and Oval Springs had won out 
in the fight. Years later it would break out 
again and again until Casa should eventually 
come into her own. 

Crowds of cheering citizens swarmed the 
streets of Oval Springs throughout the rest of 
the day and there was every symptom that it 


Tumbleweeds 


239 

would be a wild night in town. Carver consid¬ 
ered plunging into the festivities. Someway the 
thought of returning to the ranch held forth no 
appeal; this strange lack of interest was equally 
true when he contemplated joining the celebra¬ 
tion over the victory of Oval Springs. He didn’t 
care a hang which town had won out. 

“ There don’t seem to be much of anything 
that I do want to indulge in right now,” he re¬ 
marked. “ Sol guess I’ll ride home. You won’t 
be needing me any longer,” he said to Mattison. 
“ If you don’t mind I’ll resign and be on my 
way.” 

He rode out of town in mid-afternoon and he 
failed to stop by the Lassiter’s place as was his 
usual custom but held straight on to the Half 
Diamond H. 

Molly heard through Bart that he had re¬ 
turned. She expected to see him waiting for her 
in the little saddle in the ridge where formerly 
they had met of evenings but she watched the 
shadows fall on three successive nights and failed 
to see him skylined there. Her school opened 
with twenty pupils of assorted sizes, ages and de¬ 
grees of intelligence and she threw herself into 
this new work. As she rode home on the second 
night after the opening she saw Carver in the 
field. He waved his hat but made no move to 


240 Tumbleweeds 

cross over. The next evening she motioned to 
him and he joined her in the road. 

“ They tell me you’ve got a family of young¬ 
sters ranging all the way from Mexicans to 
Bostonese,” he greeted. “ How’s the new 
school?” 

“ Perfect,” she said. “ I love it.” 

“ Now me, I’d lose my mind after the first 
day,” he said. “Has Johnny begun to shed his 
milk teeth yet? It’s a downright shame the boy 
has to lose ’em again after all the trouble he had 
cutting his first ones.” 

The girl remained silent while he made in¬ 
quiries concerning a number of her charges, re¬ 
calling incidents from their past lives which she 
had heard from fond parents and passed on to 
him at various times. He had dropped into his 
old casual vein as easily as if nothing of an un¬ 
usual nature had occurred since their last meet¬ 
ing. But Molly found it difficult to meet his 
mood and chat on trivial topics. She was con¬ 
scious of a certain restraint. It was fully to be 
expected that he would mention the one thing 
which was uppermost in his mind and hers, at¬ 
tempting to explain it by the code of his kind, 
but it became increasingly evident that he did not 
intend to refer to it. She cast about for some¬ 
thing to say but could discover no topic. Her 


Tumbleweeds 241 

mind was too exclusively occupied with that 
other. 

“ That’s a good-looking new shirt you have 
on,” she stated at last, and was angrily conscious 
of the inanity of the observation in view of all 
that was left unsaid between them. But she 
forced herself to go on. “ I like gray. You 
never affect red shirts like the most of the tum¬ 
bleweeds wear.” 

She could have screamed at the idiocy of it all 
and found herself unable to proceed but Carver 
inspected the sleeve of the shirt in question and 
took the conversation away from her, dwelling 
upon the topic as if her observation had been the 
most natural one in the world. 

“ Gray’s not a bad color for everyday wear,” 
he admitted. “ I don’t run much to red. Beason 
is this: There’s eleven or twelve of us children 
at home; I forget without counting — but plenty 
— and the old man sometimes buys assorted job 
lots of clothing that has gone maybe a bit out of 
style. One day he turns up with an assortment 
of shoes. There’s gray, black, bay and buckskin 
shades in that lot — and one pair of red button 
shoes.” 

He paused t© chuckle softly at some recollec¬ 
tion. 

“ The old man takes a squint at those red ones 


242 Tumbleweeds 

and begins to size up my feet. I stage one 
frenzied protest. After they’d choked me into 
submission and crowded my feet into those red 
button shoes they start me off to school and my 
worst fears are realized. Right down to this day 
I can’t set round in company without wanting to 
shove my feet somewhere out of sight. Well, 
that same night I steal the old man’s pistol and 
drop out the window. I ain’t ever been back. 
That seems to have soured me on red for all time. 
I wouldn’t even put red paint on my barn. 
That’s why I don’t run to loud colors; a quiet 
lavender shirt, maybe, for Sundays, or a soft 
black-and-orange check if I want to dress up, 
but no red for me.” 

It was quite evident that he intended to hold 
the conversation to purely casual channels. She 
knew now that he had not misunderstood her; 
that he had assumed full responsibility for the 
affair, realizing that it would react against him 
but believing that it would be easier for her in the 
end if he were the one to go through with it in¬ 
stead of Bart. He had known that he was lock¬ 
ing himself outside and that explanations would 
be of no avail so he was deliberately avoiding 
the topic. 

“ That’s how I came to leave home,” he re¬ 
sumed. “ If ever you note any symptoms of 


Tumbleweeds 


. 243 

madness in one of your pupils, why instead of 
chastizing him regardless, I’d suggest that you 
institute a search for the red button shoes in the 
background. Big events hinge on such trifles. 
Now if I’d have stepped on a bee like Ella 
Cranston did — I forgot to mention that I left 
those shoes behind in exchange for the pistol and 
set out barefooted — it’s likely I’d have turned 
back and developed into a first-rate barber or a 
banker in place of winding up as a bronc fighter. 
Does Ella still persist in wearing shoes even in 
bright balmy weather? ” 

“Oh, Don! Why did you?” Molly inter¬ 
rupted suddenly. 

“ It was due to come some time; he’d already 
tried for me twice,” Carver said, instantly alter¬ 
ing his vein of speech to accord with her own. 
“ So I might as well have it out right then, I fig¬ 
ured, and keep Bart out of it all. Then he got 
Brad. Brad was my friend.” 

“ I’m sorry, Don; terribly sorry,” she said. 

“ Don’t you! ” he admonished. “ It just had 
to come up the way it did, seems like. You’d 
rather it was me than Bail.” 

“ I wouldn’t! ” she denied fiercely. “ Oh! I 
wouldn’t! I’d a thousand times rather it was 
Bart!” 

She hung her spurs up into her pony’s 




Tumbleweeds 


244 

flanks and the little horse darted off up the road. 
Carver stood looking after her. 

“ And I didn’t know,” he said. “ I didn’t find 
out till it was just too late. Don’t that beat 
hell! ” 


XIII 


Both Wellman and Freel had prospered. It 
was quite generally believed, though it could not 
be proved, that both men had “ sooned ” before 
the opening of the Strip, which fact accounted 
for their two filings adjoining the town site of 
Oval Springs, property which would eventually 
prove extremely valuable. However, they could 
not yet realize on these holdings so it was evident 
that their present affluence was derived from 
some other source. 

Crowfoot, even before the run, had acquired 
moderate wealth but neither Freel nor Wellman 
had been possessed of any considerable means. 
Freel now owned the largest and most remunera¬ 
tive saloon in Oval Springs. He had occupied 
the sheriff’s office since the first election in the 
county, Wellman, the original appointee, having 
endorsed his candidacy instead of running for the 
office himself. Wellman was proprietor of the 
hotel, had been elected mayor of Oval Springs 
and was a stockholder and director in the bank, 
of which Crowfoot was president. 

It was generally conceded that the money of 


Tumbleweeds 


• 246 

the ex-cowman was responsible for the rise of the 
other two but there were some who, knowing 
Crowfoot, doubted that he would use his own 
means for the advancement of another. The 
three men were closely associated nevertheless, a 
power to be reckoned with in business and politi¬ 
cal circles, rated as influential and public-spirited 
citizens. 

There was no longer necessity for Freel to as¬ 
sociate himself closely with the wild bunch, many 
of whose operations he had formerly planned. The 
years he had served as marshal had fitted him for 
this work. He could visualize a scene in ad¬ 
vance, discount its dangerous features and per¬ 
fect an alibi that would stand the test. His was 
the mind that planned but he had seldom been 
present to witness the execution of those plans. 
His actual participation in the Wharton hold-up, 
the one misdeed of its kind where he had been 
present in person, had been occasioned by a de¬ 
sire to impress upon his associates that he was of 
the same fiber as themselves. He had gone out 
in a spirit of bravado and returned in a nervous 
panic. His main source of revenue was now de¬ 
rived from protection money which he levied 
against the lawless who operated in the county, 
these assessments collected through the agency 
of the two Ralstons who were his deputies as they 


Tumbleweeds 247 

had been Wellman’s before him. Protection 
came high and both Freel and Wellman profited 
accordingly. Oval Springs was a hotbed of law¬ 
lessness and a concession for any known trans¬ 
gression could be purchased for a price, a state 
of affairs confined not merely to Oval Springs 
alone but prevalent throughout the Strip. 

The line between the law and the lawless was 
but vaguely defined. Instances of the appre¬ 
hension of any wrong-doer were decidedly infre¬ 
quent. Petty graft and crooked gambling 
flourished. As a carcass attracts scavenger birds 
so conditions in the Strip drew the vicious of the 
whole Southwest. Express messengers conveyed 
word of valuable consignments to friends who 
would make sure that the shipments failed to 
reach their destination. There were bankers who 
handled securities at stiff discounts without in¬ 
quiry as to their source, jewelers who were 
equally incurious about the previous ownership 
of gems or gold, judges and county attorneys 
who were open to reason and sheriffs who fol¬ 
lowed false trails. 

But all this was merely a passing phase coinci¬ 
dent to the transition period of a new and untried 
territory during its transformation into an old 
and proven one. The background was one of 
enduring solidity. More than thirty thousand 


248 Tumbleweeds 

families had found homes in a single day and 
these toiled steadily on, unmindful of the wave 
of deviltry and corruption that swept the Strip, 
such circumstances having no particular bearing 
on their daily lives. Later, when they had more 
time to devote to affairs outside of the immediate 
problem of shaping their homesteads up into pro¬ 
ducing farms, they would rise up and cast out the 
parasites without apparent effort, for after all 
the solid citizens were many and the parasites 
comparatively few. 

Freel rode out of Oval Springs and he traveled 
past occasional fields that were green with wav¬ 
ing wheat. Spring had brought fresh evidence 
that the Strip, now a part of Oklahoma, would 
eventually prove to be the most productive por¬ 
tion of the State. Spring crops of all sorts were 
coming up in riotous profusion. Young orchards 
had been planted round many a homestead 
cabin; rows of slender saplings marked the site 
of future stately groves. The scattering fields 
that had been seeded to winter wheat gave prom¬ 
ise of a tremendous yield and an average of more 
than twenty bushels to the acre was confidently 
predicted. Orderly garden plots were in evi¬ 
dence on every homestead. 

Since his occupancy of the Sheriff’s office 
Freel had several times stopped at the Lassiters’ 


Tumbleweeds ,9 

cabin. He had haunted Molly Lassiter s loot- 
steps for a year prior to that day when Carver’s 
inopportune arrival had put a stop to his ad¬ 
vances. In his new guise as a moneyed, influen¬ 
tial citizen he saw one more chance of gaining 
the girl’s favor. His manner was affable and 
without hint of previous unpleasant relations. 
Rather his attitude was one of friendly interest 
which any prosperous person might take in the 
affairs of a less fortunate acquaintance. Molly, 
believing that the past had best be left undis¬ 
turbed, received him as she would any other 
casual acquaintance. On the occasion of this last 
visit Freel found Bart at home. 

Bart had worked steadily, seldom straying far 
from home but instead finding relaxation at 
Carver’s bunk house where the grub-liners still 
convened. There were times when he exhibited 
real enthusiasm for his work and on such days he 
spoke of eventually buying out one or more 
neighbors and operating a farm which would one 
day rival Carver’s holdings across the ridge. 
There were other periods when the monotony of 
farm life maddened him and he grew moody and 
restless, conscious of the urge to straddle a horse 
and be off for some point where distance was not 
measured by neatly fenced section lines but in¬ 
stead was calculated in terms of a day’s travel on 


Tumbleweeds 


( 

2 * 
v 

a horse. It was during the darkest moments of 
one of these moods that Freel dropped in. 

Bart listened while Freel commented upon 
various business and political ventures upon 
which he was engaged. Bart was frankly dis¬ 
interested, his one thought for the moment being 
a desire to step up on a good horse and ride 
across a sage-brush desert in the fierce glare of 
the summer sun, or, as an alternative, to ride the 
same stretch in a screeching winter blizzard; it 
mattered little which so long as there would be 
neither fence nor human within a radius of 
twenty miles. All would have been well except 
that Freel, equally self-centered, attributed 
Bart’s abstraction to a feeling of envy induced 
by the attractive word picture Freel had painted 
of his own successes. In parting he drew Bart 
aside. 

“ Any time I can hold out a helping hand you 
can count on me,” he assured. “ I’m in better 
shape to help you on your feet than any man in 
these parts.” 

Bart was not actively conscious that he was 
being patronized but he was aware of a sense of 
irritation, and the tone as well as the substance of 
the offer brought his ill humor to a sudden focus. 

“ Oh, hell! ” he said wearily. “You can’t do 
me any favor except to let me alone.” 


Tumbleweeds 251 

“ That’s what I’ve been doing,” Freel re¬ 
turned. “ Hadn’t you noticed? ” 

“ I haven’t missed you,” Bart confessed. 
“ But keep it up and maybe I will. 

“ You’re somewhat in debt to me on that score 
right now,” Freel stated, and recited a few de¬ 
tails to prove his point. 

Bart’s home-coming with a wounded shoulder 
the day following the Wharton affair had created 
comment. His saddled horse had been found by 
a farmer near the point from which a second 
mount had been stolen, this last animal later re¬ 
covered by the Kansas sheriff’s posse after its 
rider had made good his escape. Rumor had 
linked Bart’s name with these events and the 
news had trickled to the sheriff’s office. 

“ Ho you think I’m asleep on the job? ” Free! 
demanded. “ I’ve known that all along. Don’t 
you call that letting you alone? It all dovetails 
right nicely, a clear case against you on both 
counts, robbery and horse stealing — two cases 
of horse stealing, in fact.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t bother to steal the second one,” 
Bart stated. “ Don’t make your case too strong 
or maybe you’ll lose it. I run across Carver out 
there and we swapped mounts, me escaping while 
he led that Kansas outfit astray. Maybe you 
hadn’t heard that it was Carver’s horse I came 


252 Tumbleweeds 

riding home on — but I can cite you to a few 
witnesses who saw it.” 

Freel pondered this point. He had not heard 
the name of the man picked up by the posse after 
the party they sought had presumably stolen his 
horse. 

“I’ll make it a point to cover any such little 
details as that.” he said. “ But you’re safe 
enough as long as you meet me halfway.” 

“ I’ll come the full distance and a few steps 
beyond,” Bart volunteered. “ I could throw 
some light on that Wharton affair myself and 
some day I will.” 

Freel experienced a recurrence of that appre¬ 
hension which had assailed him at intervals since 
his participation in the Wharton event. He had 
never considered it possible that Bart could have 
determined the identity of any one of the four 
men who had chanced across him that night. It 
had all happened with such suddenness; a voice 
from the darkness ahead. Then Noll had shot. 
Freel had been unaware of the identity of Noll’s 
victim till after they had left the spot and Noll 
had announced that the voice was Bart’s. Even 
then he had not been sure of the point until hear¬ 
ing the rumors which he had just now recited to 
Bart. It had seemed equally certain that Bart 
could not have recognized him. 


Tumbleweeds 253 

“ \ ou’ll have a chance to tell all you know to 
a jury,” Freel predicted. 

“ And right after I speak my piece they’ll cast 
a ballot to stretch your neck a foot long,” Bart 
announced. 

“ Mine! ” Freel said. “ What fool notion are 
you working on now? ” 

“ I’m not working — just resting,” said Bart. 
“ Here you come with all this patter about how 
you’ve befriended me by not having me jailed 
for something you did yourself. That’s real 
generosity. Maybe it’s never occurred to you 
that I recognized the four of you when you came 
riding up on me that night when Noll tried his 
damnedest to kill me.” 

Freel’s apprehension increased but he re¬ 
mained silent until Bart had finished. 

“ If I start remarking broadcast about that lit¬ 
tle event just how long do you imagine it would 
take folks to divine where the four of you had 
come from? ” Bart inquired. “ A few minutes 
back you was reciting about what a high place 
you’d attained in human affairs. Keep right on 
mounting — only keep it in mind that some day 
when time hangs heavy and I’m craving enter¬ 
tainment I’ll pull out your props and let you 
down hard.” 

He turned his back on Freel and retired to the 


254 Tumbleweeds 

house. Freel returned to Oval Springs and 
sought a hasty conference with the mayor and 
the president of the bank. He was palpably 
nervous as he recounted the details of this com¬ 
plication. 

“Get hold of yourself!” Wellman ordered. 
“ You’re jumpy. What does it signify anyhow? 
One man’s wild yarn about hearing your voice in 
the dark wouldn’t even shake that alibi. It’s 
water-tight.” 

Crowfoot nodded agreement and chewed 
placidly at his cigar. He could face such a situa¬ 
tion without turning a hair — as could Wellman. 

“ Bart’s in no shape to do any commenting,” 
Crowfoot amplified. 

“ But I tell you he will,” Freel insisted. 

“ Sit down,” Wellman instructed. “ Plant 
yourself in a chair and quit prowling in circles. 
You’ll wear out the rug.” 

“ Bart might be feeling a trifle venomous since 
Noll tried to down him,” Crowfoot conceded. 
“ It would have been preferable if Noll had quit 
living before he took that shot at Bart. But in 
order to link you with it he’d have to convince 
folks that he recognized your voice at night, then 
prove that you’d come from Wharton instead of 
any one of a hundred other points on the map. 
Not a chance in ten thousand.” 



Tumbleweeds 255 

“ But Carver’s into it now,” Freel pointed out. 
“ You know what that means. He’s been wait¬ 
ing for a chance at me.” 

“ What you mean is that you’ve been waiting 
for a chance at him,” Crowfoot corrected. “ And 
you’re crediting him with holding the same senti¬ 
ments toward you.” Crowfoot was not one to 
allow personal differences or dislikes to obscure 
his judgment. “ He’s the kind that’ll not inter¬ 
est himself in your affairs unless you go romping 
over onto his reservation and prod him into hos¬ 
tilities that he’d likely be wanting to avoid if only 
you’d let him. You’d better let this man Carver 
strictly alone. He’ll do the same by you.” 

Neither Wellman nor Freel was prepared to 
accept this bit of advice. 

“ Then I’ll just tender one more suggestion,” 
Crowfoot announced, after finding himself over¬ 
ruled. “ If you’re set on this business, then I’d 
urge that you do it yourselves, just the two of 
you, instead of hiring it done.” He was familiar 
with Freel’s roundabout methods. 

Wellman endorsed this last suggestion. 

“ Absolutely,” he agreed. “ Me and Freel will 
tend to this matter in person.” 

Freel failed to state whether or not these senti¬ 
ments met with his full approval. Crowfoot re- 


256 Tumbleweeds 

garded him closely, then stretched and rose from 
his chair. 

“ Once there was three men in a town,” he re¬ 
marked. “ The rest didn’t count overmuch. One 
of the three had sand but no brains. Another 
was equipped with cunning but was totally minus 
of nerve. The third had both sand and brains.” 

“ And which one was you? ” Freel inquired. 

“ I mentioned myself last,” Crowfoot answered 
without hesitation. “ And being equipped like I 
explained, it does look like I could do better to 
trail by myself instead of being mixed up with a 
pair of rat-brained miscreants like you. If you’re 
set on stirring up Carver, you can just count me 
out.” 

He departed and left Freel and Wellman to 
perfect their own plans. 

They conferred at some length and as a result 
Freel spent several days in making quiet investi¬ 
gations among the homesteaders north and west 
of the Half Diamond H. Another evidence of 
the change that was taking place in the country 
was the fact that the code of silence and refusal 
to divulge information no longer prevailed. 
Many of the newcomers were willing, even eager, 
to impart any possible scrap of information. 
Freel found some who had noted Bart’s return 
with a crippled shoulder; others that would tes- 


Tumbleweeds 


257 

tify that the horse upon which he was mounted 
belonged to Carver. He discovered one man 
who had seen Bart ride up the Half Diamond H 
lane in the evening. I11 each instance Freel 
shook his head and commented upon the fact that 
it looked as if the two of them had been mixed 
up in it; that it certainly seemed inevitable that 
he should have to place them under arrest and 
charge them with the crime if the evidence kept 
piling up. In each case also he requested secrecy. 
In reality he gathered insufficient evidence to 
hold either of them overnight but he had created 
an abundance of witnesses to serve his purpose. 

Some two weeks thereafter a man rode up to 
the rear door of the one saloon in the little town 
of Alvin a few miles down the valley from the 
Half Diamond H. He dropped his reins over 
a post a few feet from the door and entered. For 
an hour he loitered at a table, playing solitaire 
and making an occasional trip to the bar for a 
drink and a chat with the bartender. 

“ Nice place,” he commented after he felt that 
their acquaintance had ripened somewhat. “You 
own it? ” 

The man behind the bar nodded. 

“ Man by name of Carver live round here 
close? ” the stranger inquired. 


258 Tumbleweeds 

“ A piece up the valley,” the bartender as¬ 
sented. “Not far.” 

“ Drop in here often, does he? ” the man asked. 

“ Whenever he’s in town — couple of times a 
week average,” the proprietor informed. “ Drops 
in for a glass of beer before riding home. Mostly 
he’s in of afternoons; once in a while of nights 
when some of the boys gather here. You want¬ 
ing to see him? ” 

“ Yes,” the other man admitted. 

“You can ride out to his place in half an 
hour.” 

“ Rather see him first and size him up,” the 
stranger stated. “ Harvest is coming on and he 
might use a hand. But I always like to look a 
man over before I hire out to him.” 

The saloon keeper nodded without comment. 
This was no harvest hand. The stranger’s face 
was stamped with ruthlessness; straight thin lips, 
and above them a pair of wide-set cold black eyes. 

“ Point him out to me when he comes in, will 
you? ” he requested. “ So’s I can sort of size 
him up.” 

Again the barman nodded. He noted the con¬ 
venient arrangement; the open back door with 
the saddled horse just outside. 

“ Sure,” he laconically assented. 


“I’ll tip 



Tumbleweeds 259 

Carver failed to appear and when the usual 
evening crowd began to assemble the stranger 
departed. The following afternoon he reap¬ 
peared, leaving his horse at the same convenient 
post just outside the rear entrance. 

“ You’d never recognize me if you was to see 
me again, now would you? ” he asked the pro¬ 
prietor. “ You couldn’t accurately describe me 
right now; and for all you can remember that 
bay horse of mine is a sorrel.” 

He shoved two gold coins across the bar and 
fixed the other man with his black eyes. The 
saloon man pocketed the money. 

“ Correct on all counts,” he agreed. 

The stranger returned to his table and the bar¬ 
tender, under pretense of arranging glassware 
and bottles, placed a long-barreled forty-five on 
a shelf just under the bar. One never could tell. 
He had been old-time rider of the unowned 
lands and could rightly read his signs. A few 
stray customers dropped in and departed. The 
liveryman lingered over two glasses of beer. The 
banker stepped in for his afternoon nip the mo¬ 
ment the bank was closed for the day, and the 
keeper of the general store came in with the pro¬ 
prietor of the lumber yard. Three neighboring 
farmers entered together and shook the dice to 
determine who should pay for the round. The 


260 Tumbleweeds 

stranger surveyed each new arrival, peering 
from beneath the brim of his hat while appar¬ 
ently absorbed in his game. Each time the man 
behind the bar shook his head. When the last of 
these patrons had departed Carver came in alone. 

“ A pint bottle of your best beer for me, 
Jimmy,” he greeted. “ An’ another one for 
you.” 

As Carver crossed to the bar the proprietor 
noted that he was not wearing his gun. He had 
discarded the weapon the day of his return from 
Oval Springs the preceding fall and had never 
worn it since. The bartender gazed fixedly at the 
man at the table, then slowly shook his head 
again, a signal which Carver could not fail to 
observe. 

Carver accorded the stranger one casual 
glance. He could see the rump of the horse that 
stood outside the open rear door. Jimmy spoke 
to the stranger. 

“ That fellow Carver you was wanting to see 
just rode up the street,” he said. “ He’ll likely 
be in any time now.” 

The man at the table nodded, frowning 
slightly at this reference before a third party. 
Carver turned, apparently noting his presence 
for the first time. 

“ Step up,” he invited. “ I’ve only time for 


I 


Tumbleweeds 261 

one; have to be dangling along toward home; but 
you can linger over yours. Name it.” 

The stranger was anxious to be rid of him be¬ 
fore the man he expected came in, so he moved to 
the bar in order to hasten proceedings. Jimmy 
set his drink before him. The man nodded his 
thanks and remained silent, not desiring to open 
a conversation lest it should cause his host to alter 
his decision to depart at once. Jimmy was 
slouching against the rear of the bar directly 
across from him, one hand resting on the shelf 
beneath it as if to support his weight. Carver 
picked up the pint of beer as if to drink from the 
bottle; then, as the stranger reached for his drink, 
Carver swung the heavy bottle by the neck. The 
man went down as the weapon struck him behind 
the ear. 

“ After your opening remarks it looked like 
the wise thing was to lay him out first and make 
inquiries later,” Carver said as he retrieved the 
fallen man’s gun. 

“ He was out for you,” Jimmy informed. “ I 
don’t know why but maybe you do.” 

“ Not an idea; never laid an eye on him be¬ 
fore,” Carver asserted. 

“ He’s been waiting two days,” Jimmy said. 
He removed his hand from beneath the bar and 
exhibited the long-barreled gun. “ I had this 


262 Tumbleweeds 

shoved against the front side of the bar within 
a foot of his vitals so I could touch it off through 
the wood in case of a slip. Them’s only half-inch 
boards there in front. You and me has been 
friends a long time and I was half minded to 
down him before you showed up; only you can’t 
put a man across just because he’s inquiring 
about a friend, no matter what you suspect about 
his intentions — not without getting thirty years 
or else take to the hills. But I was here to see 
that things came out all right.” 

“ I wonder now,” Carver said, looking down 
at the man on the floor. “ I wonder who sent 
him.” 

“You knew, didn’t you, that Freel has been 
round collecting evidence against Bart in that 
Wharton affair? ” Jimmy asked. “I’ve been 
hearing that for quite a piece back. Folks get to 
talking over their drinks. Most always they do.” 
He recited a few comments which had come to 
his ears. “ Just thought I’d tell you. If you 
look under that party’s vest you’ll find a deputy’s 
badge. That’s a hard layout up at the county 
seat and you’ve had words with different heads 
of the ring, so I gather.” 

“ That clears up the reason for his being here,” 
Carver said. “ They sent him. He’d make a 
clean get-away if he could — flash that deputy’s 


Tumbleweeds 263 

badge if he couldn’t, and they’d back him 
up.” 

“ He don’t know that you’re Carver,” Jimmy 
said. “ I’ll bring him round after you leave and 
explain that you was a friend of Carver’s and 
decided that things wasn’t right when I made 
that incautious remark. That will put me in the 
clear. I’ll announce how he’s unsafe in these 
parts; that you brought in twenty-odd friends to 
view him laying there, face up, on the floor; that 
they marked well his features and declared open 
season on him anywheres in this part of the State. 
If he believes me he’ll high-tail for parts un¬ 
known — and if he don’t, why, I’ll send him 
there.” 

Carver rode out to the Half Diamond H and 
entered the house. When he reappeared he was 
wearing his gun and he rode on across the ridge 
to the Lassiters. He found Bart seated on the 
corral bars, his chin propped in his hands as he 
gazed moodily across a field of ripening grain. 

“ How long since you indulged in some 
thoughtless comments about Freel’s being mixed 
up in that Wharton hold-up? ” Carver asked. 

“ Two weeks — maybe three,” Bart returned. 
“ He was so satisfied with himself that I just 
thought I’d tell him.” 

“ And right after that he started connecting 


Tumbleweeds 


264 

you and me up with it,” Carver said. “ He’s 
been exerting himself to inquire among folks 
about your horse being found up near where 
you departed with that old crow-bait you was 
on when I met you; about that Kansas outfit 
jumping a wounded outlaw and picking me up 
instead, and how you turned up on my horse, 
you being shot in the shoulder.” 

“ Sho! ” Bart deprecated. “ He couldn’t make 
that stick. You don’t imagine, now do you, 
that Freel’s fool enough to have us jailed? Not 
when I could spill what I know. He wouldn’t 
even consider it.” 

“That’s what he wouldn’t!” Carver agreed. 
“ He’s just creating a background. We’re not 
slated to languish in jail, you and me. We’re 
marked out for the slaughter.” 

Bart brightened. 

“No!” he exclaimed. “Surely you can’t 
mean that something is going to happen. It will 
provide me with a fresh interest in life if there’s 
a prospect that I might possibly lose it. And 
how will all this come to pass? ” 

“ Killed while resisting arrest,” Carver stated. 

“ Sounds reasonable,” Bart admitted. “ I’ll 
positively guarantee to resist.” 

“ Before you’re ever arrested you’ll be much 
too dead to make any protest,” Carver pre- 


Tumbleweeds 


265 

dieted. “ Freel has planted the idea in folks’ 
minds that before long he’ll have to book you and 
me for that deal. It’s been whispered about and 
they’re sort of expecting it. Then some day he’ll 
drag in our corpses and announce that we’d been 
shot while resisting his efforts to take us.” 

“ Interesting but only part way convincing,” 
said Bart. “ You’ve neglected to explain how 
he’s to gain possession of our corpses so he can 
start dragging ’em in. I’ll remonstrate with 
him considerable before I’ll let him have mine.” 

“ He won’t collect it in person,” Carver said. 

“ Maybe I’m supposed to send it to him,” 
Bart suggested. “ But he don’t deserve any such 
favors from me. I consider his scheme a flat 
failure, myself.” 

“ That county-seat aggregation is a hard bunch 
to go up against, the way they’re sitting right 
now,” Carver said. “ They’ve got influence and 
power behind ’em. This way of eliminating a 
troublesome party is time-tried and tested. It’s 
found favor with many a sheriff and chief of 
police before now and it’s an old favorite with 
Freel.” 

“ Then it appears that the clever thing to do 
is for us to organize too,” Bart volunteered. 
“ You can act as the chief and send me out to 


266 


Tumbleweeds 


get Freel. I’ll dry-gulch him so far from no¬ 
where that even the coyotes won’t find him.” 

“ Some other time,” said Carver. “ Not now. 
We could hardly ride into town and murder 
the mayor and the sheriff all in one day without 
some sort of excuse. It would create unfavor¬ 
able comment. This deal down at Alvin bears 
■> 

the brand of Freel’s deep-seated planning. It’s 
likely they’ll come after us themselves the next 
time they try it, just so as to give it the earmarks 
of a lawful attempt to arrest. Meantime we’ll 
have to work up a background of our own. The 
county seat needs cleaning up wholesale. If 
a man’s going to live anywhere he might as well 
have decent conditions. Once folks get that in 
their minds we can defend ourselves and still 
render a patriotic service to the county as a 
whole.” 

“ All right,” Bart agreed. “ After you’ve un¬ 
furled the flag I’ll lead the last desperate charge 
with the whole county cheering. But it still 
appears to me that it would be simpler for me 
to lay out behind the hedge somewheres and do 
a little bushwacking myself.” 

“ Meantime, just in case Freel sends out 
another hired killer, I wouldn’t lay myself open 
to any chance stranger that comes dropping 
along,” Carver advised. 


Tumbleweeds 267 

“ The first stranger that shows up anywhere 
within three hundred yards goes down in the 
smoke,” Bart assured. 

Molly Lassiter came from the house as Car¬ 
ver turned to leave. He did not come often of 
late and she walked with him a short distance 
up the trail. 

“ We’ll start cutting next week,” Carver 
stated. Their talks were largely impersonal 
these days. “ Harvest is crowding close to us 
now.” 

“ Bart expects to start cutting Monday,” she 
said. “ How many bushels do you think your 
wheat will thresh out? ” 

“ It’ll run close to twenty,” he estimated. 
44 Maybe more. We ought to get fifteen thou¬ 
sand bushels or better.” 

44 And more next year,” she said. 44 You’ll put 
out more wheat this fall, won’t you? ” 

44 Likely,” he answered. 44 1 hadn’t quite made 
all my plans for next season.” 

He had mentioned the fifteen thousand bushels 
of wheat casually and without elation. It would 
pay for the new farm machinery with which the 
Half Diamond H was now stocked but for which 
he still owed, leaving him a big margin for future 
operations. This first year’s crop would put him 
on a solid basis and well on his way toward the 


268 Tumbleweeds 

maturity of his original plan to buy all of the best 
land in the valley. By the time other home¬ 
steaders could prove up on their tilings he would 
be in a position to buy out all who would selL 
He had no present need even to avail himself 
of the assistance which both old Joe Hinman 
and Nate Younger were anxious to extend. 
Younger’s outfit had been the largest in the 
unowned lands in the old days and now Carver 
was building it up into the largest of the new day 
that had dawned. He had been top hand for 
both the Box Bar and the Half Diamond H 
under the old regime, a moving spirit among the 
riders of the Cherokee Strip, and now he had 
become a leader among the settlers. Both of his 
old employers, having taken a part in raising him, 
were duly proud of the fact; theirs still the loy¬ 
alty that had always prevailed between an owner 
and the men who rode for his brand. The easy 
road to success now opened invitingly to Carver 
but he found no joy in the prospect. He had 
worked steadily toward his original aim but his 
initial enthusiasm was lacking. 

The girl had observed this change and it 
troubled her. Of late Carver had exhibited a 
restlessness that was akin to Bart’s; and she 
wondered. He had gone so far; would he turn 
back now ? 


Tumbleweeds 269 

She accompanied him but a short distance and 
the conversation was confined to impersonal 
topics. She observed that for the first time in six 
months he was wearing his gun. As they parted 
he noted her troubled gaze resting upon it. 

“ Sho! This? ” he said, tapping the weapon. 
“ I someway don’t feel dressed up without it. I 
wear it as an ornament, kind of, the way a girl 
wears a ribbon,” and he moved on up the trail. 

A few days later Molly mounted the ridge and 
watched the start of the harvesting. There was 
nothing to attract swarms of harvest hands such 
as crowded into the country farther north where 
the whole landscape seemed a solid body of wheat. 
Another year, when the acreage seeded to wheat 
would be increased fourfold, then they would 
come. But Carver had found no scarcity of 
hands to help him harvest his crop. From her 
point of vantage the girl could see tall-hatted, 
chap-clad men toiling in the fields. Later in the 
season, after the wheat had been stacked, she 
would see them plowing. They rode their horses 
out to their work as they had always done, and 
left them standing about. 

She would see no other harvest such as this. 
Another season and the wheat fields of the Strip 
would be invaded by the riffraff that always 
came south for the harvest and followed it north,. 


Tumbleweeds 


270 

Then the tumbleweeds would be gone. Now they 
had rallied to lend a helping hand to one of their 
own kind, one man who had understood. And as 
she watched them toiling at these unfamiliar tasks 
she experienced a thrill of sympathy for the men 
who had helped to make homes possible for others 
and now found no place in the new scheme of 
things for themselves. For the riders of the 
waste places had ever been the vanguards of 
civilization. Fur traders had skimmed the riches 
of their calling from a vast territory and de¬ 
parted, leaving it no more habitable than before; 
gold seekers had prospected the hills and passed 
on but the cowhands had stayed to make the 
West habitable for those who should follow. 
And now that the followers had come there was 
no further use for the ones who had led the 
way. 

As the summer advanced the girl observed how 
swiftly the ranks of the grub-liners were depleted 
as they were forced to realize the fact that spring 
work would never open up for their sort again. 
Families of Cherokees still prowled the country¬ 
side at will, pitching their teepees along the 
streams, the squaws begging incessantly from one 
homestead cabin to the next. The settlers, ex¬ 
pecting nothing better from the Indians, were 
prone to tolerate this sort of nuisance but looked 


Tumbleweeds 271 

with increasing disfavor upon the nomadic white 
riders that drifted about in much the same aimless 
fashion. Yet they were not parasites, these men, 
even though the newcomers so viewed them. 
Rather they came from a proud fraternity. In 
grub-lining they had been merely following an 
ancient and respected custom of their kind and 
when they now found that this no longer pre¬ 
vailed they desisted. 

It was only through Carver’s insistence that 
grub-liners still continued to drop in at the Half 
Diamond H. Their presence created the one 
break in the monotony that seemed closing in 
upon him. He made that clear to each comer 
and urged each one to return. But another old 
custom was dying and the number of grub-line 
riders who turned up for meals at the Half 
Diamond H was depleted by half before the 
summer was ended, as these jobless ones drifted 
into other lines. 

One by one, the # girl watched them go and she 
wondered how they would fare in these new pur¬ 
suits which they adopted, not from choice but 
from necessity. The majority would sink to 
oblivion, drudging at tasks which they had always 
despised. But there were some whose names were 
slated for fame in the annals of this new South¬ 
west. 


272 Tumbleweeds 

Carl Mattison was destined to become one of 
the most-famed marshals of all time. Even now 
the fame of his reputation as a man hunter was 
mounting. The name of Crowfoot was slated to 
become synonymous with prestige and power, 
linked with perhaps the most impressive fortune 
in the whole Southwest. There would be many 
others who would attain high places. Milt Lassi¬ 
ter would create a place in history as one who 
would defy the law for a dozen years with a price 
on his head and with every officer in five States 
desirous of collecting it. And this last-named 
career was even now exerting its influence on 
Molly’s understanding of the conditions which 
prevailed in this new land. 

In the main the old conventions were respected, 
old traditions upheld, but modified to fit condi¬ 
tions as they were, not as other communities de¬ 
creed that they should be. Here actualities were 
everything, appearances nothing, and there was 
not yet that rigid adherence to minor banalities 
that were accepted as eternal verities in older 
communities where such details were considered 
the bulwark of smug respectability. Here a man 
was judged by what he stood for in his present 
environment, his daily relations with his neigh¬ 
bors, not by what his family had accomplished in 
generations past, — for the past had no part in 


Tumbleweeds 273 

this new land that lived in the present with an 
eye to the future. Ex-convicts were making a 
new start with their families; former wildlings 
were making good and the rising above past 
transgressions was considered a cause for con¬ 
gratulation, not one for reproach. Milt Lassi¬ 
ter’s ill fame did not react to the detriment of 
either Bart or the girl, their neighbors valuing the 
two for themselves alone. 

This knowledge brought in a new doubt to 
Molly — a doubt which fostered a certain con¬ 
tent. After all, in a land of new standards, was 
it right that her adherence to a moth-eaten tradi¬ 
tion should keep Carver and herself apart? This 
thought, gradually crystallizing into a conviction, 
brought with it a measure of comfort, but Carver, 
not knowing, experienced a daily increase of rest¬ 
lessness and discontent. 

Few times when the bunk house held.more than 
three grub-liners and all too frequently it was 
unoccupied. Carver found time dragging slowly 
and days and nights were equally monotonous. 
He knew that he could sell his holdings for a 
considerable sum. Should he sell out and migrate 
to some point where there was still some open 
range available and buy out a small cow outfit? 
He debated this problem but lacked his usual 
gift of quick decision. 


274 Tumbleweeds 

There came a night when several old friends 
rode up to the bunk house. Joe Hinman and 
Nate Younger dropped in for one of their fre¬ 
quent overnight visits and Bart Lassiter came 
across the ridge. A stud game was in order and 
Carver rose and went to the house, brought forth 
a silver dollar and addressed it. 

“ Little lonely dollar, you was to mount up to 
a million. You haven’t mounted that high yet 
but if I’d follow through it’s likely you’d attain 
it. But is that what we’re wanting after all? I’ll 
put you to the test — fair God or false — and 
let you decide it for me.” 

He returned to the bunk house and took out a 
fifty-dollar stack of chips, tossing one red chip 
back and replacing it with the silver dollar. 

Old Joe Hinman regarded the coin that 
crowned the stack of chips. 

“ Seems like I’ve seen the selfsame coin be¬ 
fore,” he commented. “ Surely now, you 
wouldn’t go and risk it. It’s led you quite a 
piece, that dollar has.” 

“ But maybe not in just the right direction,” 
Carver said. His thoughts reverted to the day he 
had acquired it. 

“ What depends upon the outcome? ” old Joe 
inquired. “ Which way will you leap? ” 

“Just this one stack,” said Carver. “If I 


Tumbleweeds 275 

double it I stay. If I lose I go. It means the 
difference between here and somewhere else; 
pumpkins or tumbleweeds, cows or crops — for 
one more year.” 

An hour later he cashed in a double stack and 
the cards had decreed that he stay for another 
year. 

Bart Lassiter leaned back in his chair and 
grinned sympathetically. 

“ My year has another six months to run,” he 
said. “ Ill be free before you regain your liberty. 
You’ll find me waiting for you somewhere out 
yonder when your sentence has expired.” 


XIV 


Two settlers stood in the saloon in Alvin. 
The proprietor lowered his voice and leaned 
across the bar. 

“ Look you, now*— there’s going to be a kill¬ 
ing,” he predicted. He jerked a thumb toward 
the rear door. 44 Right out there is where he left 
his horse and for two days he set there at that 
table waiting for Carver to come in.” 

Jimmy had just recited the incident of the 
stranger’s attempt to take Carver unawares and 
was now merely adding a few conclusions of his 
own to lend an air of spice and mystery to the 
tale. 

“He knows too much about folks that are run¬ 
ning things in the county seat, Carver does; him 
and Bart Lassiter,” Jimmy stated. 44 A bar¬ 
tender hears things. Folks get to talking over 
their drinks. Most always they do. I’ve heard it 
said for a positive fact that Bart saw Wellman 
blow up the bridge out of Oval Springs the 
night the up-passenger was ditched and two men 
killed. Wellman was sheriff at the time.” 


Tumbleweeds 277 

It seemed that the two homesteaders had also 
been hearing things. 

“ United States mail went up in smoke that 
night when the mail car burned,” said one. “ I’ve 
heard that Mattison’s still making inquiries about 
that. He never quits, Mattison don’t.” 

“ Well, then, and who’s the two men that could 
convict Wellman and get him hung a mile high? ” 
The saloon man pointed out triumphantly. 
“ Who, now? Why, Bart Lassiter! And Car¬ 
ver! I’d never want it said that it come from 
me; it’s only between us three. But who is it 
that knows Freel led the shooting when some of 
Mattison’s men was killed at the same time Well¬ 
man was wrecking the bridge? Whoever knew 
that would be dangerous to Freel, wouldn’t he? 
See how it all works out? ” 

The two nodded agreement. 

“ There’s a dozen of Carver’s close neighbors 
that swear he was home the whole day of that 
Wharton business that Freel was trying to con¬ 
nect him up with,” one volunteered. “ I guess 
Freel seen it wouldn’t do any good to have him 
put under arrest.” 

“ Arrest! Listen! ” and Jimmy leaned farther 
over the bar. “ That was months back. It’s no 
arrest that he wants. Didn’t I say there was due 
to be a killing? He was just paving the way for 


278 Tumbleweeds 

it. Mark me, now! Some day we all will hear 
that Carver and Bart has been arrested — 
dead!” He lowered his voice still farther. 
“ The fellow that left his horse out there while he 
waited for Carver was wearing a deputy’s badge 
under his vest. But he didn’t appear anxious 
to arrest Carver alive.” 

Jimmy sighed and passed the two men a drink 
on the house. Later he would charge that bit of 
hospitality against the sum Carver had left with 
him for the purpose. 

“ Of course I wouldn’t want to be quoted,” he 
concluded. “ But a bartender hears things. 
Folks get to talking over their drinks. Most 
always they do.” 

It was perhaps the hundreth time he had de¬ 
tailed his conclusions to different customers in the 
past two months. In various parts of the coun¬ 
try others of Carver’s friends had been similarly 
occupied in breathing their suspicions into willing 
ears. It was being asked why no arrests were 
made in the county except for minor offences. 
The settlers, since their first crop was harvested 
and they had more leisure time to devote to 
affairs outside their own personal labors, were 
giving thought as to the manner in which the 
county seat was managed; and their opinions 
were being furnished ready made. 


Tumbleweeds 279 

A quiet individual turned up in Oval Springs 
and made a few discreet inquiries, interviewing 
perhaps a dozen residents of the town, his queries 
in each case the same. He merely asked if they 
could state positively that Freel and the Ralstons 
had been in town on a certain date some months 
back; and if they were willing to testify that Milt 
and Noll Lassiter had been held in durance 
throughout that same day. The date was that of 
the Wharton hold-up. No man could swear posi¬ 
tively to these facts. Whenever some party 
volunteered the information that he was equally 
unable to swear to the contrary, the inquirer 
merely nodded and replied that it would be quite 
unnecessary. Then, after three days in the 
county seat, he left town in the night and was 
seen no more. None had witnessed his depar¬ 
ture ; he had told no man his business and there 
was widespread conjecture as to whether or not 
he was in the employ of the Wharton bank. 

He rode up to the Half Diamond H at day¬ 
light on the morning after the cards had decreed 
that Carver should remain for another year. He 
declined the money which Carver would have 
given him to cover expenses. 

“ Just for old times’ sake,” he said, and rode 
south to catch a train out of Enid for his home 
ranch in Texas. 


280 Tumbleweeds 

And just across the ridge Bart Lassiter was 
recounting the outcome of the previous night’s 
poker session to his sister. The girl experienced 
a queer little pang when she heard that Carver 
had risked the silver dollar which he had treasured 
for so long a time. She knew its associations, also 
that it rested within her power, and hers alone, to 
reinstate them, vested with all their former mean¬ 
ing. A small thing perhaps, but relatively unim¬ 
portant events are frequently more significant 
than the large and obvious, and this incident in 
some way served to fix the conviction that had 
been growing upon her for weeks past. After all, 
what did anything matter but her own viewpoint 
and Carver’s? But Hinman and Nate Younger 
were waiting to ride with her to Oval Springs for 
the first county fair, from which point she would 
accompany them to Caldwell for a few days be¬ 
fore the opening of her school for the fall term. 
The two old cowmen had planned this trip for 
weeks and she could not disappoint them now. 
She would be more sure of herself before the day 
of her return; would have time in which to deter¬ 
mine whether or not the new-found conviction 
was permanent. And suddenly she knew that she 
was sure of herself now, — very sure; but her two 
old friends were waiting. She drew Bart aside. 

“ Tell Don not to risk it again,” she said. “ I 


Tumbleweeds 281 

want him to keep it always. Tell him that for 
me.” 

And Bart, deciding that his sister’s whims had 
already imposed far too many restrictions upon 
both his own activities and Carver’s, carefully 
refrained from delivering the message. Instead, 
he registered a protest when he crossed the ridge 
to see Carver. 

“I’m becoming downright weary of listening 
to warnings,” he fretfully declared. “ Never a 
day goes by but what some friendly soul drops 
past to inform me that Wellman and Freel are 
scheming to play it low-down on me. Every man 
in the county must know it by now.” 

“ The most of them,” Carver agreed. “ If 
anything was to happen to us now there’d be five 
hundred men rise up and point out to their friends 
that they’d been predicting that very thing — 
that they’d been telling ’em all along how Well¬ 
man and Freel was planning to murder us some 
night.” 

“ It’s nice to know that we’ll be vindicated after 
we’re dead,” said Bart. “But I was wondering 
if there maybe wasn’t some method by which we 
could go right on living even if we don’t get quite 
so much credit for our part in the affair. Per¬ 
sonally I don’t approve of trifling round trying 
to set the whole county on their trail when one 


282 Tumbleweeds 

man could terminate their wickedness in two 
brief seconds.” 

“ But it’s paved the way for the clean-up of the 
county seat,” said Carver. 

“ Let’s you and me ride over and clean it up in 
the old wild way,” Bart urged. 

“ Only we’ll let them ride out here,” Carver 
substituted. “ That background I was speaking 
about a while back is all arranged.” 

“ I’m glad you’re satisfied with the back¬ 
ground,” Bart returned. “ I still maintain that 
I ought to secrete myself behind a sprig of scrub 
oak and wait until Freel comes riding into the 
foreground. That way we’d take ’em front and 
rear. But anyway suits me, if only it transpires 
soon.” 

“Real soon now,” Carver promised. He 
turned to a grub-liner who was saddling his horse 
in the corral. 

“ You’ll find Mattison waiting in the hotel at 
Casa,” he informed. “ He’ll be expecting the 
message. Tell him just this: That my time has 
come to deputize him. He’ll know what to do. 
Then you forget it.” He turned back to Bart. 
“ Real soon now,” he repeated. “ That’s the chief 
reason why Hinman and old Nate insisted on 
taking Molly over to enjoy herself at the fair.” 

The girl was, in all truth, enjoying herself at 


Tumbleweeds 283 

the fair. It was as old Joe Hinman remarked to 
a group of friends in the lobby of Wellman’s 
hotel. 

“ Nate and me are giving the little girl a vaca¬ 
tion,” he said. “ First time she’s been away from 
that homestead overnight since Bart filed on it. 
She thinks a lot of that little place, Molly does. 
Even now she won’t be persuaded to stay away 
but one night. We’ll take her up to Caldwell this 
evening to buy a few women’s fixings and show 
her the best time we can but she’ll come traipsing 
back home to-morrow. Can’t keep her away. 
Carver had to promise to go over and stay all 
night with Bart so no one could steal that home¬ 
stead while she’s gone.” 

Nate Younger remarked similarly in Freel’s 
saloon within earshot of the two Balstons who 
were refreshing themselves at the bar. In fact, 
the two old cowmen mentioned the matter to a 
number of acqaintances whom they chanced 
across in a variety of places throughout town and 
it was within an hour of noon before they took 
Molly out to the fair. 

The girl found the fair a mixture of the old 
way and the new. The exhibits were those of the 
settlers but the sports and amusements were 
those of an earlier day, a condition which would 
prevail for many a year. Every such annual 


r 


Tumbleweeds 


284 

event would witness an increase of agricultural 
exhibits, fine stock and blooded horses as the 
country aged; but at fair time, too, the old-time 
riders of the unowned lands would come into their 
own again for a single day. Then would bar¬ 
tenders lay aside their white aprons, laborers 
drop their tools and officers discard their stars, 
donning instead the regalia of the cowboys. 
Gaudy shirts and angora chaps would be resur¬ 
rected from the depths of ancient war bags. 
Once more they would jangle boots and spurs 
and twirl old reatas that had seen long service. 
The spirit of the old days would prevail for a day 
and a night and fairgoers would quit the exhibits 
to watch the bronc fighters ride ’em to a stand¬ 
still, bulldog Texas longhorns and rope, bust and 
hog-tie rangy steers, to cheer the relay and the 
wild-horse races and all the rest of it; then a wild 
night in town, ponies charging up and down the 
streets to the accompaniment of shrill cowboy 
yelps and the occasional crash of a gun fired into 
the air, — then back to the white aprons and the 
laborer’s tools for another year. 

The girl and her two old companions spent the 
day at the fair and in the early evening took a - 
train to Caldwell some two hours before Freel 
and Wellman rode out of town. The evening’s 
festivities were in full swing and none observed 



Tumbleweeds 28s. 

their departure. Freel was nervous and ex¬ 
cited. 

“ We’d better have sent some one else,” he said. 

Wellman turned on him angrily. 

“ And have the thing bungled again! ” he said. 
“ Damn your roundabout planning and never 
doing anything yourself. If you hadn’t sent that 
fool over to Alvin without letting me know we’d 
have had it all over by now. Crowfoot told you 
we’d have to do it ourselves. So did I. And if 
you’d only waited we’d have found an opening 
months back but that Alvin fluke made Carver 
take cover and he’s never give us a chance at him 
since. We wouldn’t even know there was one 
to-night if those two old fossils hadn’t let it out 
accidental.” 

“ But maybe that talk of theirs was — ” Freel 
began, but his companion interrupted and cut 
short his complaint. 

“ We’ve give Carver time to do just what we 
was to head him from doing — getting our names 
linked with every deal we wanted kept quiet.” 

“ He couldn’t prove a sentence of it in the next 
fifteen years,” Freel asserted. 

“ He’s started folks thinking — and talking,” 
said Wellman. “ They’ll talk more every day. 
It’s right now or never with me! ” 

“ But it’s too late to make out that it’s an 


286 Tumbleweeds 

arrest,” Freel protested. “ After all that’s been 
said.” 

“ That’s what I know,” said Wellman. 44 So 
we’ll hurry it up and slip back into town. With 
all that fair crowd milling around, there won’t be 
one man that could testify we’d ever left town; 
and I can produce several that’ll swear positive 
that we’ve been there all along.” 

They rode on in silence and they had not cov¬ 
ered a distance of three miles from town when 
Mattison rode into the county seat at the head 
of a half-dozen men, — men who, incidentally, 
knew nothing whatever of his mission except that 
they had been deputized to follow wherever he 
led. As the marshal entered the outskirts of 
town a figure detached itself from the shadows. 
Mattison joined the man who reported in tones 
that did not carry to the rest of the posse. 

“ They’ve gone,” he informed. “ I followed 
Freel every living minute till he and Wellman 
slipped out of town together a half-hour ago.” 

“ Sure they didn’t change their plans and come 
back? ” Mattison asked. 

“ Dead sure,” the man stated positively. 
44 Not a chance.” 

Mattison led his men direct to the county jail 
and left them just outside the office while he 



Tumbleweeds 287 

entered alone. The two Ralstons occupied the 
place at the time. 

“ Where’s Freel? ” the marshal demanded. 

“ Couldn’t say,” one of the deputies answered. 
“ Out around town somewheres likely.” His 
eyes rested apprehensively on the group of men 
standing just outside the door. “You wanting 
to see him? ” 

“Yes. I was — somewhat,” Mattison ad¬ 
mitted. “ I surmise you all know what about.” 

The Ralstons denied this. 

“ We’ll go out and look him up,” Mattison de¬ 
cided. “You two stay here. I might be wanting 
to question you later.” 

But the Ralstons failed to tarry. Within five 
minutes after the marshal’s departure they set 
forth from town and the county was minus the 
services of two deputies who neglected even to 
hand in their resignations before quitting their 
posts. 

A similar scene was enacted at Wellman’s 
hotel. The crowd in the lobby turned suddenly 
quiet as Mattison led his men in and inquired at 
the desk for Wellman. The proprietor was not 
to be found. The county attorney reclined in a 
chair at one side of the lobby and Mattison 
crossed over and addressed him. 


288 Tumbleweeds 

“ Any idea where I could locate Wellman and 
Freel? ” he inquired. 

The county attorney moistened his lips and dis¬ 
claimed all knowledge of their whereabouts. A 
voice rose from the far end of the lobby, a voice 
which Mattison recognized as that of the man 
who had accosted him in the outskirts as he rode 
into town. 

“ They got out ahead of you, Colonel,” the 
man stated. “ Your birds has flown.” 

“ What’s that? ” Mattison asked, turning to 
face the informer. “ How do you know? ” 

“ Just by sheer accident,” the man reported. 
“ I see one party holding two horses just outside 
of town. Another man joined him afoot. One 
of ’em touched off a smoke, and in the flare of the 
match I made out that they was Wellman and 
Freel. They rode west.” 

“ That’s downright unfortunate,” Mattison 
said. “ But it don’t matter much. I was only 
wanting to see them to gather a little informa¬ 
tion they might be able to give. Another time 
will do just as well.” 

He turned and stared absently at the county 
attorney and that gentleman’s florid countenance 
turned a shade lighter. 

“ Don’t matter,” the marshal repeated, rousing 


Tumbleweeds 289 

from his seeming abstraction. “ Nothing of any 
importance.” 

He led his men from the lobby and rode west 
out of town. And out in the country toward 
which he was heading were Carver and Bart Las¬ 
siter, both prone in the grass a few yards apart 
and as many from Bart’s homestead cabin. 

“ This is growing real tedious,” Bart stated. 
“ Whatever leads you to suspect that they’re 
due to pay their call on just this particular 
night? ” 

“ They won’t if you keep on talking,” Carver 
returned. “ If you keep quiet they might.” 

Bart lapsed into silence. He had already spent 
a long hour in his present location and would 
have preferred to be up and stirring about. 
Another twenty minutes dragged by and he was 
on the point of addressing Carver again when his 
intended utterance was cut short by a slight 
sound close at hand. Five more interminable 
minutes passed and he heard a single soft footfall 
a few feet away. 

Two dim figures approached the house and 
slipped silently to the door. The night was so 
black that they seemed but two wavering patches 
that merged with the surrounding obscurity. 
One tested the latch and the door opened on 
noiseless hinges. For a space both men stood 


290 Tumbleweeds 

there and listened. Then one entered while the 
other remained at the door. 

Carver spoke. 

“ What was you expecting to locate in there? ” 
he asked softly. 

The man in the door whirled and fired at the 
sound of his voice, the flash of his gun a crimson 
streak in the velvet black of the night. Carver 
shot back at the flash and Bart’s gun chimed with 
the report of his own. There was a second flash 
from the doorway but this time the crimson spurt 
leaped skyward for the shot was fired as the man 
sagged and fell forward. There was a splinter¬ 
ing crash of breaking glass as the man inside 
cleared a window on the far side of the house. 
Bart shot twice at the dim figure that moved 
through the night, then rose to his feet intent 
upon following but Carver restrained him. 

“ Let him go! ” he ordered. “ One’s enough! ” 

“ But just why the hell should I let Freel get 
away? ” he demanded, pulling back from the de¬ 
taining hand which Carver had clamped on his 
shoulder. 

“ It’s Wellman. Freehs there by the door,” 
Carver said. 

How can you tell? It’s too black to see,” 
Bart insisted. 

“ Wellman would be the one to go in. Freel 


Tumbleweeds 


291 

would be the one to hang hack,” Carver said. 
“ That’s why I planned for you and me to stay 
outside in the grass instead of waiting inside. 
Wellman and me used to be friends — likely 
would be still if it wasn’t for Freel. It makes a 
difference, some way. Wellman’s harmless to us 
from now on, outlawed for this night’s business. 
He’ll be riding the hills with the wild bunch till 
some one comes bringing him in.” 

He stopped speaking to listen to the thud of 
many hoofs pounding down the trail from the 
ridge. 

“ Now I wonder who that will be,” he specu¬ 
lated. 

“ You know now,” Bart accused. “ You al¬ 
ways know. Whoever it is didn’t come without 
you had it planned in advance. But I’ll never 
tell what I think.” 

“No, I wouldn’t,” Carver advised. 

Mattison reached the foot of the trail with his 
men. 

“What’s up?” he inquired. “We’d just 
stopped at the Half Diamond H to ask you to 
put us up for the night. Nobody home. I 
thought I might find you here so we’d just 
started over when all that shooting set in and we 
hustled along. You two out hunting for owls? ” 

“ Yes,” Carver said. “ There’s one by the 


292 Tumbleweeds 

door. The other one flew out the window. Bart 
and I was reclining out here in the grass talking 
things over when the pair of them eased up to 
the door and one slipped on in. I asked how 
about it and the man in the door started to shoot. 
Then we did some shooting ourselves. The party 
there by the door is our amiable sheriff.” 

“ Then the one that got off is Wellman,” one 
of the posse spoke up. 4 ’ Right from the first 
shot I guessed it. I’ve heard it whispered round 
that they was planning to get you, and when the 
ruckus broke I was looking to find you two dead 
when we got here. I’m glad they got it instead. 
That whole county seat bunch needs cleaning 
out.” 

There was a chorus of assent from the posse 
and under its cover Carver murmured to Bart. 

“ So much for background,” he said. 

44 It’s a right queer bit of business for them two 
to be at,” Mattison stated. 44 I’ll have to put off 
gathering that information from Freel. You’d 
better saddle up and ride on into town with me, 
Carver, and we’ll report this affair to the county 
attorney. You boys bring Freel in with you. 
He’s likely got a horse tied round somewheres 
close. Scout around till you find him. Yes, 
we’ve been needing a change of officials at the 


Tumbleweeds 293 

county seat for some time and it does look like 
the alteration has been effected tonight.” 

Carver rode off with the marshal. 

“ Thanks for going to all that bother,” Carver 
said. “ I’m indebted a lot.” 

“ It just evens that score,” said the marshal. 
“ And the whole thing worked out nice. It’ll 
make a clean sweep in Oval Springs. Wellman 
won’t show up any more. I’ll venture to predict 
that the two Ralstons will have vanished from 
these parts before morning and the county attor¬ 
ney is scared into a state of palpitation right now. 
He’ll attend to all the necessary formalities to see 
that you’re given honorable mention instead of a 
trial.” 

“ Then after we’ve finished with him I’ll take 
the night train for Caldwell and loaf around a 
few days,” Carver announced. “ I haven’t trav¬ 
eled to any extent for some time.” 

It was nearly morning when the train pulled 
into Caldwell. 

“No use to go to bed now,” Carver decided. 
“ I’ll find some of the boys and set up.” 

The Silver Dollar, now conducted in the rear 
of a cigar store which had been fashioned across 
the front of the building since the old, wide-open 
days had become a thing of the past in Caldwell, 
was still operated as an all-night place of amuse- 


294 Tumbleweeds 

ment. But Carver found that its grandeur had 
vanished, the whole atmosphere of the place was 
different. There were a dozen men in the place, 
but of them all Carver saw not one of the riders 
that had been wont to forgather here. 

He drew a tarnished silver coin from his 
pocket. 

“ Here’s where I got you and right here is 
where I leave you,” he said. “ You’ve sewed me 
up for one year now and I’m about to get shut 
of you before you cinch me for another. We’ll 
spend you for a drink to the boys that used to 
gather here. Back to your namesake, little silver 
dollar.” 

As he crossed to the bar he glanced at the 
swinging side door that led into the adjoining 
restaurant. It opened and a girl stood there, 
motioning him to join her. He followed her out¬ 
side. Two horses stood at a hitch rail down the 
street. 

“ Come on, Don; we’re going home,” she said. 
Then, as he seemed not quite to understand, 
“ Didn’t Bart tell you? ” 

“ No,” he said. “Whatever it was, Bart didn’t 
tell me.” 

“ Then I’ll tell you myself on the way home,” 
she promised. 


Tumbleweeds 295 

She linked an arm through his and moved 
toward the two horses at the hitch rail. 

“ Tell me now,” he insisted, halting and swing¬ 
ing her round to face him. “ You can’t mean — 
but I must be reading my signs wrong, some 
way.” 

“ You’re reading them right,” she corrected. 
“ All those outside things don’t matter. I know 
that now. We’re going home, Don, just you and 
me. That’s all that counts.” 

He had a swift, uneasy vision of the occur¬ 
rences of the night just past. 

“ But you haven’t heard —,” he commenced. 

“ Oh, yes; I’ve heard,” she interrupted. “ The 
news was telephoned up here and was spread all 
over Caldwell before you even took the train from 
Oval Springs. That doesn’t matter either. Hin- 
man phoned to Mattison at the hotel and found 
that you were coming. That’s how I knew and 
why I was waiting up. I’ve rented those two 
horses so we could ride instead of taking a train 
to Oval Springs. I’d rather, wouldn’t you? ” 

“We’ll start in just one minute, Honey,” he 
said. “ But first — ” 

She looked the length of the street and nodded, 
for there was no one abroad. 

Some miles out of Caldwell the girl pulled up 


296 Tumbleweeds 

her horse where the road crossed the point of a 
hill. 

“You remember? ” she asked. 

“ I won’t forget,” he said. 

For it was from this same point that they had 
watched the last of the herds of the big cow out¬ 
fits held in the quarantine belt awaiting shipment, 
the riders guarding them, the trail herds moving 
up from the south, while over across had been that 
solid line of camps where the settlers were wait¬ 
ing to come in. 

“We saw the sun set on the old days here,” she 
said. “ Let’s watch it rise on the new.” 

For as far as they could see the lights were 
flashing from the windows of early-rising settlers. 
A boy was calling his cows. A rooster crowed 
triumphant greeting to the red-gray streaks that 
were showing in the east. There came a flapping 
of wings as a flock of turkeys descended from 
their perch on the ridgepole of a barn, then their 
querulous yelping as the big birds prospected for 
food in the barn lot. 

“ It’s different,” he said. 

Then, from the road below them, came the clat¬ 
ter of hoofs and riotous voices raised in song; a 
few wild whoops and a gun fired in the air. 

“ The last few of the tumbleweeds, rattling 


Tumbleweeds 


297 

their dry bones to impress the pumpkins,” Carver 
said. 

The words of the song drifted to them. 

I’m a wild, wild rider 
And an awful mean fighter, 

I’m a rough, tough, callous son-of-a-gun. 

I murder some folks quick 
And I kill off others slow; 

It’s the only way I ever take my fun. 


The girl’s thoughts drifted back to the big 
Texan who had led the stampede and then pre¬ 
sented his claim to another. She leaned over and 
rested a hand on Carver’s arm. 

“I’m very much contented right now, Don,” 
she said. “ But so terribly sorry for the poor 
tumbleweeds that have been crowded out.” 









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